


tourists in the waking world

by moogle62



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films), The Road - Cormac McCarthy
Genre: Crossover, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-07
Updated: 2010-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-23 20:36:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2554802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moogle62/pseuds/moogle62
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>This is it, Holmes breathes, and his voice shakes; he sounds like he could run mad were Watson not gripping onto his hands. The end.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	tourists in the waking world

**Author's Note:**

> A Sherlock Holmes/Harry Potter/The Road fusion repost from LJ in 2010. Originally posted [here](http://moogle62.livejournal.com/103604.html). Title from Blinding by Florence & the Machine.
> 
> Trigger warnings in the end notes. <3
> 
> ALSO Tortugax on LJ created [this](http://ysombras.livejournal.com/2103.html) amazing mix for this fic as part of the Holmes Big Bang challenge, which I hard rec!

It starts when they're in Yorkshire. Probably it would have started had they been in London, but as it is, they are in Yorkshire. A rash of thefts in imposing manor houses brought them up after a telegram from the local chief inspector, and Watson thinks, later, often, that it should have been something more important. There was nothing really to the case - a butler did it - and Watson knew Holmes had solved it by the time he passed Watson the telegram instead of the butter over breakfast. But Holmes had taken a beating on the case before last and was refusing to let himself heal properly, and Watson had done some fast and creative talking to get him to agree to take a train into the countryside. A change is as good as a rest, Watson had said, and Holmes had replied that he sincerely doubted that.

They go to Yorkshire, then, however reluctantly on Holmes's part, and so that is where they are when the world ends.

*

Watson wakes up to the world in flames outside his window. A house fire, he thinks, bolting up in bed, but when he reaches the window and draws the curtains aside, it's clear it's not just the house. He presses the palms of his hand against the cold glass panes and watches everything outside burn hot.

Watson, says a voice behind him, like Watson's name means everything in that one moment, and he spins round to see Holmes silhouetted in the doorway, the same orange firebrand light catching him from the window far down the hall. Something clutches in Watson's chest. It isn't fear. 

What's happening? he asks.

You need to pour a bath, Holmes tells him. He brushes past Watson's shoulder, heading for the little en-suite nestled in the corner of the room.

Watson follows. What? he says. Holmes, what's going on?

Holmes blasts on the taps, wrenching them around and around until Watson claps his hands over Holmes's and pulls him away. The water thunders into the bath, cacophonous. Holmes is breathing hard. His jaw is tight but his eyes are shining. Watson recognises this look from the ends of cases past: the game's afoot, but Watson won't like it.

Holmes tightens his fingers around Watson's own and they stand and listen to the crashing water, the crackling flames outside.

This is it, Holmes breathes, and his voice shakes; he sounds like he could run mad were Watson not gripping onto his hands. The end.

*

Holmes was butchering the violin in the next room. Watson now knew that Holmes knew this piece backwards - and that wasn't even hyperbole, he'd played it from end to beginning a few weeks prior, on a bet from Watson that it couldn't be done, and the most galling bit of it all was that he'd been fairly conclusively smashed at the time - and this screeching rendition was solely for Watson's benefit. 

Watson scrubbed at his face and stared absently into his wardrobe. Mornings had stopped being his forte after he moved in with Holmes. The violin abruptly stopped wailing.

"If you'd care for some tea," Holmes called, voice louder than really necessary, "I suppose I can refrain from drinking the whole pot."

"That'd be good of you," Watson shouted back.

"I _hate_ cold tea," Holmes informed him, still at the top of his lungs, and Watson grinned.

 

*

 

They stay huddled on the floor next to the bathtub for hours; Watson doesn't know how many. The walls shake. Outside, a wind howls like it's looking for vengeance, and Watson's drawn curtains don't stop the glow of fire from seeping into the room. It would be primordial but for the trappings of contemporary life around him, the stone walls around them, the fading wallpaper, the recently polished taps on the sink and the bath. 

Watson would ask if they should make for safety, but he's almost certain there isn't anywhere safer than this little country inn, itself a doubtful haven. He stays quiet. He asked, earlier, whether they should perhaps find the other guests, the innkeeper and his family, whether they should group together. Holmes had looked him full in the eye and told him they had gone; Watson had said, What do you mean, gone? but Holmes hadn't answered.

Holmes, by Watson's side, is silent now too.

They wait.

 

*

 

The fires drop, eventually. Watson's body reminds him that it would really appreciate it if he didn't spend long stretches of time on a cold floor in a cold room with his back half bent over under the cold lip of a bath. Holmes stretches, and, as though this were permission, Watson stretches out moments later. He hears his joints creak and crack in protest.

You're getting on, old chap, Holmes says, like he might over morning tea. Or afternoon tea, at any rate, because Watson acquired his new distaste for mornings from Holmes' rather more vehement vendetta against them. Not a spring chicken any more.

Watson isn't quite sure what happened last night, and his heart beats fast, fast, when he thinks about what they might see if they peer out of the window, but nothing has changed so much that Watson won't answer back. Admittedly it's difficult for him to come up with something more involved than _I find your face extremely perplexing_ , but he tries. 

You're one to talk, he says, watching Holmes grimace as he gets to his feet. The chill's set in, has it? Yes, I see. Pity, that.

Holmes goes through into the bedroom, draws back the curtain. Watson can see even from his distance away that the glass in the window has cracked from the heat. Ice has started to rime around the edges of the panes now; it's turning cold outside. 

There's someone out there, Holmes says, on a breath of disbelief. Watson hurries over; Holmes shifts almost instinctively to the right, making way for him without even glancing behind. He points; Watson doesn't see anything. 

Where?

Holmes frowns. There were two men in that doorway, he says. But Holmes hasn't taken his eyes away from the empty town square and he would have seen where the men went, and so - I must have been mistaken, Holmes says. He doesn't sound convinced. Watson steals a glance at him out of the corner of his eye in the way that so infuriates Holmes if he catches him, like he suspects Watson of checking up on him. Holmes is still staring out of the window, mouth set tight and unhappy. _Of course he's unhappy_ : Watson thinks about the night they've just spent on the floor, the sound of fire outside and the way he and Holmes, pressed tight together, couldn't tell which one of them was shaking. It doesn't make any difference, though: Watson has never been able to let Holmes look like this for long.

So: I saw them, Watson tells him.

Holmes doesn't believe him. Really, Watson? It's condescending. Some things apparently just don't change.

I _saw_ them, Watson insists.

Holmes doesn't press the matter. This is really to Watson's advantage; if forced, he couldn't say whether he really did see anyone. Sometimes it's worth it to argue; sometimes, he just agrees with Holmes.

Holmes chooses instead to rummage through the room. Watson doesn't know what he's looking for, doesn't think it will particularly help to ask. He sits down gently on the edge of the bed. He can feel the stitching on the eiderdown surprisingly real beneath his fingers, like he'd expected the world to have shrunk to just himself and Holmes, like other things, touch and taste and tangibility, would have burnt away overnight.

Holmes, flat on his stomach to examine the underside of Watson's bed, suddenly rocks back on his heels. What are you doing, he says.

I'm not the one lying on the floor, Watson says, because surely this gives him an edge if they're going to have the I'm More Right Than You fight again, even if this is hardly the time.

Exactly.

What?

I, at least, am scouring the room for items of use, while you appear to be neither looking for such items nor being of any use yourself.

Watson actually smiles.

What?

Nothing, Watson says, and gets up.

*

 

It sort of makes sense that Watson follow Holmes now; why change old habits? Holmes says they should try and find passage back to London, so that is what they should do.

Watson does say, as he sorts systematically through the kitchen cupboards and tries to ignore the conspicuous absence of any other people in the inn, Wouldn't it be safer to wait here?

Wait here for what? Holmes says, brusquely, emptying a drawer of cutlery upside down onto the old, stocky table in the middle of the room and raffling through the jangled outcome. The world's already ended. 

Would you stop saying that, Watson snaps, abruptly, taking himself by surprise. It's not over. We're still here, aren't we?

Holmes pauses. His hands go still on the pile of silver. My good man, he says, more softly than anything he has said since they picked themselves up from the bathroom floor, what makes you think that means anything?

 

*

They have a brief and vicious argument about what constitutes a necessity, glaring each other down over the counter at the bar. Holmes seems to think that bringing most of the alcohol on the premises with them would be a topping idea, while Watson, thinking of the weight of the bags and how little they are really going to be able to bear between simply the two of them, tries to pare his selection down.

They settle the matter quickly, neither of them particularly wanting to fight in the noiseless inn. They are the only source of movement. Every so often, the wind, still searching for something lost outside, bangs a shutter against a wall, a tile off a roof, and they both jump and both pretend otherwise.

By the time they have filled two hefty knapsacks and a couple of actual sacks, found by rummaging through the oddly organised basement, it is getting dark outside. Watson realises, staring out through the frosted glass in the main door, that it never really got light. 

We'll set off in the morning, then, Holmes says, coming to Watson's side.

All right, Watson replies, and they watch the night creep in over the cobbles of the street outside.

*  
The next morning, they lug through into the hall the bags they've packed. All heaped together under an off-kilter painting of a hillside dotted with sheep, they look too many to carry. The worst of it will be the water, Watson thinks, the water they scooped out of the bath Holmes made him pour and into any receptacle they could find with a reliable lid. 

Holmes? Watson asks, glancing up to find Holmes standing rigidly still in the open doorway.

 _There_ , Holmes hisses, and he sprints out into the street. Watson swears, grabs the bags closest to hand, and follows.

It only takes him a moment to catch up with Holmes. He is standing stock still in the middle of a street, only two quick corners away from the inn. Watson had chosen the turns on instinct and hope. It's a small thing, he knows, but it's still something he's grateful for; that he took the right roads.

What is it? Watson asks, stopping just behind Holmes.

I must have lost them, Holmes mutters, not really paying Watson any attention. They must have -

Who? Watson interrupts.

The men from yesterday. Holmes is impatient. They crossed the square and I followed. Keep up, Watson.

Holmes starts to stride off; Watson grabs his shoulder.

Not yet, he says. We need the bags from the inn. 

Holmes doesn't move.

Holmes, Watson says, more firmly. I am perfectly willing to start a search for these two men with you. All I ask is that you not resign us to death from exposure or starvation when we inevitably end up too far from the inn to return before nightfall.

Holmes stares at him. Watson raises his eyebrows: What?

Watson, Holmes says, we're not going to _start a search_ for these men.

We're not? Watson thinks it must be too early in the day for him to sound this long-suffering, but apparently it's not.

Of course not. Holmes has started to walk back the way he came. We're going to London.

London, Watson echoes.

Sometimes, Watson thinks, following Holmes back to the inn, you imagined your thoughts to be completely identical to Holmes's when you were thinking _tea and crumpets at four would be nice_ and Holmes was thinking something about magnesium compounds. 

*

When they first set out, they don't talk. It is the type of quiet Watson remembers from the war, at night: men lying silent either asleep or trying to be; men on watch, evening out their breathing to pass the time and steady their pulse; the dead, their presence strong wherever you were, strongest in the medical tent, like a threat, like it would be you next. 

There is no-one else out on the road. They leave the small village mostly behind without seeing another living soul, without even seeing any bodies. There are carts, charred and abandoned on the street; Watson scans them in case the axles would hold, in case they could use them, but none of them are any good. Snow lines the streets, blankets the fields; ashes lie atop it in places, from burnt-out trees or burnt down houses. It is cold. Watson wishes he had a thicker coat, that Holmes had a thicker coat. Their shoes are impractical, but they'll have to do for now.

At the very edge of the village, when they've seen no buildings and plenty of fields for about twenty minutes, or so Watson thinks, there is a horse lying dead straight across the road. There are flies swarming his eyes, his flared nostrils, his open mouth. Holmes puts a hand out, needlessly, to stop Watson from going any closer. 

They wait for a moment, more out of shock than anything like respect, Watson supposes. This dead horse is the first sign they have had that they may not be all that's left.

Come on, Holmes says, grasping Watson's elbow. There's nothing for us here. Come on.

 

*

There was a burglary across the road from their apartment. Mrs Hudson tutted about it when she brought up a tray of lunch.

"Not to worry, Mrs Hudson," Holmes had said, batting Watson's hand away from the slivers of cold meats, "it's nothing of importance. The whole matter should be dealt with very shortly."

Watson reached for the ham again. His fingers brushed the plate; a police whistle sounded from outside and Holmes leapt up from his chair, newspaper falling unheeded to the floor in a disgruntled rattle of paper.

"My word!" Holmes cried, in an loud and entirely false expression of astonishment. "What on earth could that be?"

The three of them clustered around the window. On the street outside, a small crowd had gathered around a show front. A uniformed officer bundled a struggling man through the onlookers into the back of the waiting police cab, clipping him round the ear when he bucked and struggled to be free.

"Well," Mrs Hudson breathed, and if Watson could hear a suspicious tinge to her voice then it was one he shared himself. "Fast working policemen we've got these days."

"Anonymous tip," Holmes said, tapping the side of his nose in an irritatingly knowledgeable way, and Mrs Hudson sniffed fondly at him, and left, bearing away the cups from an earlier pot of tea.

*

They travel at quite a pace. Holmes swings his gaze from one side of the road to the other in the same way that Watson has seen him crawl on hands and knees across unfamiliar floors. When Watson watches Holmes now, he doesn't see that extra leap, the flicker of Holmes knowing something Watson hasn't worked out yet. There's just Holmes, searching for something, and the way he shivers in the deepening chill, idly, like it's a minor inconvenience. 

It's just like Holmes to be trying to solve the end of the world, Watson thinks, and then he spares himself a brief moment of pride. That's a big concept to have subconsciously accepted; then again, it's hard to do anything but accept it when they're the only people around and everything else is covered in snow or the burnt remains of what was there before, silence ringing out in front of them like the bells before church.

Watson coughs, just to hear it.

Holmes flicks him a glance, and his mouth tightens with a soft, fond recognition. It looks out of place here amidst the barren fields; Watson knows that not hours ago it would have seemed ordinary, if anything about Holmes could ever seem ordinary.

Good to know you're finding something about this situation amusing, Watson says, but his voice wavers dangerously, and Holmes says, Oh, yes, hilarious, in his droll, straight-faced manner, and then they both do laugh, rowdy and inappropriate, and Watson listens to that ring out in front of them instead.

 

*

Dusk hits quickly in this new, dull world and they stop for the night away from the road, about fifty yards into an ash-covered field.

Watson makes a fire out of the detritus lining the edges of the road. It doesn't take immediately: the air is damp and cold, and Watson's hands shake when he tries to light a match.

Holmes says, As soon go kindle fire with snow as seek to quench the fire of love with words.

Watson says, You are quite monumentally unhelpful.

They open a can of soup that they took from the inn's pantry (Watson has to smile when Holmes takes the proffered can opener from his outstretched hand; What good has man of a can opener when he has not the means to open his mind, Holmes had said, capriciously, hands on his hips and head tilted high, and Watson had said, Man has need of opening his cans) and warm its contents in a small pan that they take turns in holding over the fire. It is hardly fine cuisine, but Watson has eaten worse things out of necessity and Holmes by choice.

Watson constructs them a tent; Holmes watches, and moves sticks where Wason tells him, although Watson has absolutely no doubt that Holmes could do this on his own. They sleep on top of stolen floral bedsheets, under the canvas tarps they pulled from under a box of Christmas decorations in the basement of the inn. They weigh the tarps down with the heaviest things they can find: rocks, lying by the road, or the couple of books Holmes insisted they bring with them. They'll be too heavy, Watson had protested, and then, at Holmes's oblivious defiance, Fine, but you're going to carry them.

Watson has carried them so far.

Some time after full dark but before the slow rise of dawn, Watson jerks blearily awake out of an unremembered dream to find Holmes sitting with his arms clasped around his knees, head tilted to the side, listening to something.

What is it, Watson asks. Sleep changes the sound and shape of his words so that for a moment he doesn't recognise his own voice.

Listen, Holmes says, and Watson does, but there is nothing to listen to.

I don't hear anything, Watson says. The side of his face is still pressed into a folded blanket, a make-shift pillow. 

_Listen_ , says Holmes, impatiently. Watson peers up at him, sees only a dark shape against a darker background. Listen, Watson, there's someone out there, can't you hear them?

Watson listens again, but still nothing comes back to him. I don't, he starts, and thinks better of it. I'm listening, he says. Don't go out there.

It is silent enough that he can hear his own heartbeat steady in his ears, and beyond that, Holmes's measured, patient breathing. Watson listens to that, and how Holmes doesn't move, and, somewhere along the way, he slips back into sleep.

*

Packing up again in the morning is more difficult than packing for the first time in the inn. They encounter the familiar problem of straying away from home: everything that slotted so easily into bags on one end seems unwieldy and improbably large on the other. Snow has fallen overnight, which doesn't help matters.

Holmes is no help either, but then, Watson reasons, Holmes has never been particularly helpful when the problem to be solved is creating order out of _tangible_ chaos rather than its metaphysical counterpart. 

Are you incapable of completing tasks in haste, Watson? Holmes calls, striding the same ten paces back and forth over again. Watson can see his feet, his shins, in the peripheries of his vision as he squats by the half-packed bags; the main part of his focus is the pan handle that is presenting its own form of obstinacy by refusing to settle back in among the cans of food and make-shift tent poles Watson has already wrangled into short term submission.

We can have haste now or we can have food again later, Watson rejoins, mostly ignoring Holmes. And I for one would appreciate a meal tonight.

Bad men live that they may eat and drink, good men eat and drink that they may live, Holmes tells him, without missing a beat, in that tone a knife's edge between playful and cruel. It makes Watson's skin crawl, and he doesn't know if it's entirely unpleasant.

If you could kindly refrain from casting aspersions on my moral character until I have finished packing our only worldly belongings, Watson says, wresting the pan into place and leaning back on his heels, I would most appreciate it.

I would most appreciate your haste, Holmes retorts, but he comes to a standstill. Watson glances up and back to see a smile tugging at Holmes's face. Is there anything I can do, my dear man, Holmes asks, overly conciliatory, in response to Watson rolling his eyes, and even ankle-deep in snow and dirt, Watson grins.

 

*

It rains that day. It rains, and rains, and they are soon soaked through to the skin, clothes plastered to their skin until they become skin themselves. Holmes shakes the water out of his hair like a dog.

They stop sooner than they did the night before, mostly to get out of the downpour. They find what shelter they can by the side of a hill, Watson working numb fingers to make the tarps co-operate while Holmes builds the fire. It's almost as if they have lived this life a thousand times before rather than spending their days in shared apartments on a busy London street, being brought meals and tea trays by their landlady.

The fire doesn't burn hot nor last long, but it is enough for the food they eat to be warmer than Holmes's skin is when Watson brushes his wrist reaching for the pan, rain-slick against the side of Watson's own hand. They leave the smoke rising from the damp wood and wait out the weather in their tent, hardly weather-proof itself. Watson shivers and shivers until his teeth chatter without him really noticing. He would change his clothes but he has only one set of fresh things and it's a long way from here to London, and Holmes is set on London. He thinks of all the times he has ever told his patients to keep warm and dry. He thinks of frostbite and infection and chest colds, tuberculosis and pneumonia. 

Easy, Doctor, Holmes murmurs, in his old, sly undertone, and huddles up close to Watson. As a physician, I am perfectly certain that you could heal thyself or my own good self, should it come to that. Nothing like past experience to render absolute trust, wouldn't you say?

Watson leans against him. Watson will always let himself lean against Holmes. 

 

*

Holmes had been awake for going on seventy two hours, and Watson hadn't known how he could just keep on going. It wasn't a particularly difficult case, as it would eventually turn out, but it had all hinged upon one little detail, and apparently that detail had been fairly elusive. Elusive to Holmes was incomprehensible to anyone else, so all Watson had been able to do was be there and try and get Holmes to eat every few hours.

There came a point where Holmes had sat himself down the wrong way around in a chair opposite Watson at about two o'clock in the morning, and Watson, lowering his newspaper, had looked up and tried to blink the exhaustion out of his eyes. 

"Holmes," he said, "you need to sleep."

"No," Holmes said, feet tapping arrhythmically against the floorboards, "what I need is to solve this case. What you want is for me to sleep. Need shall always conquer want, Watson, and it's that distinction that is important here."

Watson didn't have the energy for that argument. He'd been up at least sixty of Holmes's seventy two, and everything was starting to look blurred, like he was drunk though unfortunately lacking any of the more pleasant side-effects.

He stood up, crossing to Holmes's chair. "I'm not asking for a whole night," he told him. "A couple of hours, maybe. You could wake up and find the answer has presented itself to you while you slept."

Holmes scoffed, but Watson was used to that. 

"Come on, Holmes. One hour, then. I'll even wake you up."

Holmes looked up at him. "I fail to see what good that will do either of us. Inevitably, I would waste valuable time and you would simply drift off yourself once suitably convinced by my repose."

"Yes, of course, I realise I am quite the hindrance to your deductive process." Holmes made a noise of agreement. "Nevertheless. You know I have my practice just next door. It would be a work of moments to concoct the necessary solution - "

"But you won't," Holmes interrupted. " _You_ wouldn't inject me with anything. You spend too much time as it is examining my veins." His smile turned cruel. In an odd way, it comforted Watson: Holmes usually only lashed out when something was important. "If I sought chemically induced slumber, I would be perfectly capable of creating such a state myself."

"I know," Watson said, rubbing a hand over his own tired eyes. "Yes, I know."

Watson hadn't closed the curtains yet. If he'd cared to look, he would have seen the whole room reflected back at him, the Holmes in the window panes made blurry but the lines of his body - shoulders angled taut, arms crossed around the back of the chair - just as sharp.

Watson said, "Holmes," and his voice caught on something drained and futile. His throat ached with it.

Holmes's feet stilled. When he looked up, Watson thought, _his eyes are very dark_ , and then he thought, _I am very tired_.

"All right," said Holmes, getting up, dismissive. He picked up a paperweight from the chaos near the hearth, tossed it in his hand as though it were the only thing of importance of which he could conceive. "An hour." Sharply: "You'll wake me."

"Yes," Watson said, and the relief was almost something physical. "I'll wake you."

 

*

The following morning, the cold is a biting, dry one that freezes the effects of the rain into sleek, iced-over mud. Holmes and Watson slip and slide as they pack away their belongings. Watson, whose reflexes are just as good as Holmes's but whose leg, bitter with the reproach of being ill-used, won't support quick movement, falls more than once.

Holmes helps him up each time with the air of the disinterested, and even now, when it shouldn't matter, that studied lack of care for this abiding incapability is the only way Watson can take his offered assistance. 

Starting on their way again, Holmes stops, stares over his shoulder at something in the rolling hills just beyond their campsite.

What is it, Watson asks.

I saw something, Holmes says, slowly, testing how it sounds. I saw someone.

Watson readjusts the pack on his shoulder. There's a patch there that has been rubbed red and painful over the last couple of days, the bag too weighty against the wrong fabric and unfavourable weather, and a day spent carrying the same burden in the same place against only half-dried clothes will leave it raw by nightfall. He says, Do you want to go after them? 

Holmes hesitates. No, he says. No, we'll keep on.

Watson shifts the bag up again, trying to keep an awkward grip on his cane at the same time. If you're sure, he says, and Holmes nods decisively, and they set off.

Holmes doesn't say anything for a while, but Watson catches him checking the sides of the road, the crowns of distant hills, a regular, surreptitious jerk of his head. He's looking for something, or - and Watson takes in Holmes's frown - questioning what he's already seen.

The wind bites at their half-dry clothes. Watson edges the pack on his shoulder up again.

Stop that, Holmes snaps.

Watson stops.

 

*

Watson wasn't there when Holmes crawled out of the Thames at the end of the case, or when the police bundled him into a cab, but he was there when he collapsed on the rug in their rooms. Holmes' eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped straight down like a marionette let loose from its strings, and Watson's teacup slipped right out of his hand. He went to his knees by Holmes' shoulders, loosened Holmes' collar. He checked the pulse - still there, thank god, it was surely just a faint, just a faint because he'd been running on adrenaline and _stupidity_ for too long, awake for four days, and a swim in the _Thames_ , god knew what disease he could have picked up in there, and - Watson took a determined breath in.

He maneuvered Holmes up into one of their mismatching, overstuffed armchairs. He waited.

Holmes came to with a start, like he always did, eyes wide and disorientated for the briefest of instants, and Watson watched as, after days and days of cajoling and threatening and flat-out pleading, the tension eased out of Holmes.

Holmes snored. Watson poured and downed a drink of whiskey, and laughed, strung out and spent, into the glass.

*

It's three days before they come across any sign of other people. Walking down another deserted road, there's suddenly a noise in the treeline to their right, and they both snap their heads round to stare. They've not heard anything apart from their own voices, or the wind, or the shifting of bags against unsuitable suits since that last night in the inn. Watson remembers like it was a long time ago sitting at the bar watching Holmes wheedle information out of the innkeeper, easier to avoid antagonism because he already knew the answers. Holmes was always a nicer man when he already had what he wanted.

Then he remembers that there was a noise in the trees, and that if they came across a barstool now they would use it as firewood. 

Just as he thinks this, a thin line of smoke rises over the crest of the wood. They start forward into the barren treeline without discussing it. Watson is hoping no-one is hurt; Holmes, Watson knows, is hoping for answers. 

They reach a clearing after stumbling through the woods in silence for a good few minutes. There's the fire they've been looking for, smoking gently and untended, and while there's evidence that someone has been there recently - shoeprints in the snow, bags left open, two rifles barrel end up again a fallen tree - the place is deserted. Watson moves tentatively forward, but Holmes goes very, very still.

Holmes realises first, because Holmes _always_ realises first. In Watson's defence, he is looking more at the ways Holmes is tense by his side, the caution tight in his jaw and the recklessness waiting to overpower that, than at what they might be walking into. This is what Holmes does: he takes what Watson knows, what is all around him, and makes him forget it.

Watson, he says, voice low. Wait.

And because Watson is so used to this, he stops even before he's thought about what Holmes has said. Sometimes he thinks it's a sort of reflex now, like snatching your hand back before you realise it's hurt. What is it, he asks.

And then Watson sees it too.

There are bones on the ground in the clearing in front of them, showing up stripped white even against the snow, whiter against the black and grey ash, and they are not the bones of any animal. There is blood too, under the bones, clinging on in stringy, fleshy, lumps. Watson has seen worse, but he swallows anyway. Neither of them are armed: Holmes had not allowed it, refusing to bring his pistol to the countryside with him and vehemently protesting Watson's attempt to bring his revolver, claiming the case did not merit even that slight affectation of respect.

Watson puts a hand on Holmes's arm. Come on, he says, there's nothing for us here. Come on.

*

They're quicker at setting up for the night now. Watson makes up a tent; Holmes the fire. There has been two solid nights of rain, and Watson is constantly wondering when the tarp will be too waterlogged to be of any use. Their sheets are mostly dry, though: Watson keeps them curled up in the middle of their packs. He spends his days either dripping wet or frozen through, and he refuses to sleep that way too. 

He straightens up from securing the front of their tent, and realises there is no dance of light on canvas, no slight heat flickering like its flames on his back. He turns around.

Holmes? 

I saw them, Holmes says, crouched in front of the unlit fire. Watson, I saw two men from the window of the inn, and I saw the same two men the day we set off, and I saw them once more on the road. Holmes sounds hoarse, like he's been turning this over and over this for days and never once saying it aloud. It is completely at odds with his tendency to involve Watson against his will in endless, endless monologues in which Watson has to make appropriate noises in appropriate places until he is forced to venture an opinion, which is, inevitably, scornfully trounced. Watson doesn't know why Holmes has brought this up now - maybe a combination of seeing human bones with human teeth marks in them and three days of his own bones being almost unworkably frozen - but, fighting against the dark and the ache from days walking in the cold and the fear he'd pushed down since the night the world apparently saw fit to stop going on, Watson can only do what he always does.

I know, he lies, I saw them too.

Holmes snorts, disbelieving; Watson insists, Two men. One blonde, the other with glasses. He stops, slightly taken aback. He hadn't quite believed himself until he'd said it, and then it had been true.

Holmes looks up at him, eyes blown wide. Yes, he says.

Watson shivers. Holmes lights the fire.

*

They were both drunk; Watson had gambled with his share of next month's rent, and lost it. 

It is but a minor inconvenience, Holmes said, but he took Watson's checkbook and locked it back in a drawer in the desk. Watson never could find the key. Once, he found a note, high up in the very back of Holmes's wardrobe - and that hadn't been a particularly enjoyable place to dig through; everything was either burned or stained, or Watson's - that had read _You really will have to try harder than this, dear fellow_ , and Watson had tossed it in the fire out of petty irritation. If Holmes had noticed it missing, he never mentioned it.

I highly doubt our ever-attentive landlady would simply allow us to fall upon the mercy of the streets, Holmes said, gesturing expansively with a glass of whisky, the last of the bottle. The whisky slopped over the edge of the glass onto Holmes's wrist, and he licked it off unselfconsciously, and Watson had had to knock back what remained of his own drink.

*

Watson wakes up oxymoronically, with a reluctant suddenness that sends a shot of adrenalin through him, unpleasant when he's still asleep enough that nothing quite seems real. Something is not quite right, but it takes a moment for his heartbeat to pace itself back to normal before he can work out what.

Then: Holmes, he manages, gruffly, reaching out to shake him awake. Get up. 

A storm rages outside, and inside, the tent, and the tarp and the sheets and the bags are all drenched through and through. Watson swipes rain out of his eyes savagely with the back of his wrist, and grabs Holmes's shoulder more roughly. Get up!

Holmes comes to blearily, but he snaps awake faster than Watson was expecting when thunder claps like the wrath of something ancient, dead above them. They pick up what they can, everything wringing wet under their hands, slipping and sopping out of their grips. Watson throws sodden sheets into the packs, stuffs in the pan they used on top of that, wrenching it all closed with more force than necessary. His heart thrums wild again, and Holmes slicks back his straggling hair from his forehead, and grins at Watson with something maniacal in his eyes. Lightning flashes, and with the walls of their tent now stashed in a bag, it licks white across Holmes's face like it's trying to sear away the rain.

Come on, Holmes howls, and they positively sprint across the field. Watson had thought the weather had been awful up to now; this storm is proving him wrong. This, this is what he had thought of as being the end of days, the world rebelling in relentless, unending ways that would drive man to run until he realised there was nowhere untouched to reach.

Where are going? Watson yells, above the drum of rain on the ground. Beneath their feet, mud churns and ice cracks. They trip and stumble, but keep going. Watson's leg makes his gait awkward, but he grits his teeth and tries to speed up, cane slipping in the slick mess beneath his feet.

We passed a house, a couple of miles back, Holmes shouts back, over his shoulder. They don't slow down. 

Watson shouts, Why didn't we stop there earlier?

No idea! Holmes bawls, and he's laughing, and Watson is more scared than he'd admit, thinking wildly of the great flood in the Bible, and the empty world they are walking, but he laughs too. The storm whips the sound away from him with the wind that bites at his skin and stings his eyes, and Watson laughs, and laughs, and laughs.

*

Watson stirs first, around dawn, spread out across a tiled kitchen floor like he literally fell into sleep. His ears ring with the absence of the storm. He heaves himself up, getting to all fours first, stiff with the run the night before and the omnipresent cold still clutching at his joints this morning. He fumbles automatically for his cane, but it has tumbled and rolled over to the side of the room and he leaves it for the moment. There's a countertop along the far wall with a large sink set into it, a window above it and a bulky, wooden table dominating the centre of the room. Holmes is asleep underneath it, legs wound around a fallen chair, like he too had dropped to the ground, sprawled out, and slept, instantly.

Watson stretches, and crosses to the sink. His chest hurts, just a little. He leans his arms on the edge of the counter and gazes out of the window. There is a faintly pink tinge to the unlifting grey clouds on the horizon, an apology of colour for the bleakness of the storm. If it were not for the undisturbed snow, the austerity of the leafless trees, the lack of any traffic on the Great North Road that they have been following, this could be a normal day. Watson tests the tap, shaking his head in a mildly amused manner, but no water comes out and he didn't really expect any. He closes his eyes, just for a moment.

The awful fear of last night, tearing through a thunderstorm in the pitch black and fits of hysteria, has lessened its grip on Watson's guts. The pained, washed-out light of the day eases even that anxiety; it seems, now, almost soothing, and Watson wishes, briefly, for the clamour of daily life in London. He glances back up, and, astonished, sees two figures walking up to the house. There are two men approaching. One is blonde; the other wears glasses.

Watson drops to his knees, ignoring the sharp twinge of pain in his thigh, and crawls to Holmes's side. Holmes, he hisses. Holmes, wake up. 

The door blasts inwards. Watson jumps, and hits his head on the underside of the table. Pain flares up, sharp, and he swears and presses his hand against it.

As suave as ever, I see, Holmes says, suddenly awake and alert and smirking, and as Watson blinks back impact-related tears, Holmes swings himself out from under the table and to his feet with the grace and fluidity of a cat. 

Watson shuffles out too, getting to his feet by setting his palm flat against the table's grainy surface and heaving himself up, wishing his cane were within easier reach. _Lumbering_ , he thinks, is probably the word to describe how he's moving. 

Oh God, announces the blonde man, who has just strode on in. He's as bad as you. He's addressing his companion, who ignores him in an easy, everyday sort of way. 

What he means, says the one with glasses, is hello.

Pleased to meet you, says Holmes, for all the world like Watson hasn't seen him hunched over the beginnings of a fire, staring up at Watson like he's doubting his own mind. Sherlock Holmes, and this here is my friend and companion, Doctor Watson. Watson realises his hand has been hovering, unconsciously, where his revolver should be, and lets it drop.

The one in glasses gawps a little bit. Seriously? he says.

Yes, Holmes says, grandly. Watson never fails to be entertained by the sheer scope of Holmes's sense of self-importance.

I'm Harry, says the one with glasses, and Holmes nods.

Harry, he says. He looks him up and down, and Harry just looks mildly bemused. Watson is impressed: men have quailed before when faced that focus. You look very dry, Holmes adds, and his tone is equally arid.

Harry shrugs. I guess.

The blonde one sighs so deeply Watson thinks for a minute, setting aside all his medical experience, that he might actually have strained something. Oh my god, Potter, could you try to be less socially incompetent for even just a _couple_ of minutes?

Watson feels slightly bewildered.

My name is Draco Malfoy, the blonde man says. That's Harry Potter. You won't know who he is, of course, which makes a refreshing change. The attention goes to his head, you know.

Harry rolls his eyes, like this sort of thing was once an annoyance and now lingers merely as an irritation. Watson can understand this: adjusting to the sound of a violin at antisocial times of day had been a hard-won victory. 

There is a lull; both parties size up the other.

Watson looks down at his own dirty, ripped jacket, Holmes's shirt hanging ragged around him now. He checks, involuntarily, that they are still standing under a roof. Harry and Malfoy both do look very dry, and clean. Watson shifts a little, and desperately wants a warm bath. 

Anyway, Malfoy announces, with the same grandiose air as Holmes, earlier - and Watson spares a smile to himself; _Holmes is going to like this one_ \- can't stop, things to be getting on with. Just thought we'd check in, you know, seeing as we're deeply involved with trying to get your timeline back on track and everything, and you did keep being around.

What? Watson manages, and is vaguely disturbed that his first offering to this exchange is fairly underwhelming in terms of input. He coughs.

I'm sorry, Harry says, as he and Malfoy start to turn away, but we really can't explain right now.

Hold on, Holmes commands, imperious. Do you know what's happened? Do you know why?

How many people are hurt? Watson asks.

Holmes turns to him; it's the first time they've mentioned the possibility of other people - survivors, really, Watson supposes - since the bones in the forest clearing. He looks almost disapproving. Watson stands his ground.

They swing back to the door when the silence stretches a moment too long. There is no sign of Harry or Malfoy.

Fast runners, Watson mutters.

Did you hear them leave? Holmes is pacing again, turning on his heels when he reaches the sink, and again at the stairs near the far wall. I didn't hear them leave. He stops abruptly at the front door. Yet they left. 

It strikes Watson hard enough that he almost staggers with it that this, this is what could be too much for Holmes. The end of the world comes secondary to the end of reason.

Holmes, he says, soft enough that Holmes can ignore it if he wants to.

Holmes ignores him.

*

Watson woke up with a pounding headache that made it impossible for him to actually move his head. He managed a vague, incoherent sound, and let that idea go. Staying very still, it slowly became apparent that he was lying both on a hard, wooden floor and flush against someone's back. Watson blinked, trying to clear the hangover from his eyesight. Nothing happened, so he blinked again, and the someone was Holmes.

It wasn't that odd, Watson found, to be pressed into the contours of Holmes's spine, nor was it the first time they had been at such close quarters. Following Holmes in his line of work meant that more than once they had been squeezed into a space meant only for one person, waiting, Holmes's hand over Watson's mouth although they both knew very well that Watson wouldn't make a sound until Holmes had indicated his approval; Holmes got himself injured on a frankly astoundingly regular basis, and Watson had had to manhandle him into chairs, or cabs, or the patient's table in his practice more than would be described as 'often'; and on top of that, Holmes was a tactile person - or rather, Watson thought, it was not that Holmes was overly physically demonstrative but rather that everyone else was lacking in that respect. An arm slung warm and companionable around Watson's shoulders, Holmes leaning back against Watson's legs when he was down to earth in a chair and Holmes high on the floor, Holmes leaning in close to whisper something obscene and insulting in the presence of Scotland Yard's finest: these were things that had become accepted conventions in Watson's life.

This - this was Holmes asleep in front of the hearth with Watson curled around him like a hand around the neck of a violin, this was Holmes slack and untroubled and loose in his baggy, untucked shirt with his braces slipped off his shoulders, this was Holmes smelling still of whisky and the remnants of a smoked-out fireplace, of sleep and traces of the polish Watson had once cleared a space for Mrs Hudson to use optimistically on their parlour floor, and it was different.

Watson got up as quickly as the banging behind his eyes would allow. He shucked off his own rumpled jacket and smoothed it around Holmes's shoulders, and then he spent the rest of his morning recovering in his own bed.

The next time he saw Holmes, Holmes was bowed over what Watson was sure were highly toxic chemicals in the way that other men bowed over prayer, and Watson left him to it.

As Watson reached the doorway, Holmes said, "Good night in the end, then, old boy?" and Watson couldn't turn round to answer him, for fear of being honest.

*

They keep to the road mostly, veering off to the fields at the side to make camp at night but always up early again the following morning. It's not that they're not dragging, not that they're not running out of energy and warmth in steady, equally worrying, amounts, but simply that there's nothing else to do. It's get to London or stay where they are, and if they stay where they are, their choices shrink down to finding proper shelter in another eerie, abandoned house by the side of the road and holing up until something changes, or maybe just not waking up one morning. God knows there are enough ailments that thrive upon the body growing cold and staying cold, and Watson is also trying not to think about the nagging ache in his lungs, the way he sometimes has to cough and cough in a way he can't stop or ease, ducking away among the trees lining the roadside so that Holmes won't hear. It's not denial. It's refusal. He won't let it end like this. It seems unfitting, and more than that, if - if he died, what would happen to Holmes? 

Watson quite firmly doesn't think about that. Whenever he closes his eyes at night, shivering under their increasingly dirty blankets, he sees white bones on the white snow, red meat caught between white teeth. It would hold him awake more effectively than the bitter wind that picks up at night, howling and angry outside their flimsy canvas barriers, but he's too exhausted by the time they stop for anything to keep him from sleep. Sometimes, when Watson is lying so still on the ground that he can't be sure whether getting up again is even an option, Holmes flings an arm over him and presses up close so that the stubble growing haphazard and unbecoming down his neck and across his chin prickles the still soft skin behind Watson's ear. They've never spoken about it, and Watson never knows whether Holmes is even awake, but it helps. Sometimes, Watson wants nothing more than to lie completely alone, and on these nights, Holmes sleeps facing the other side of their tent. Holmes can somehow also divine exactly what it is that Watson needs, but in turn, he continues to refuse Watson's offers of extra layers or extra food. Watson has to keep remembering that Holmes has never been to war, and that even the most extreme espionage surely cannot have prepared him for similar conditions, but he continues to offer, because he would and will give Holmes the clothes from his own back, the food from his own plate.

Some days, they do stop. There are buildings standing empty near the road - rest stops for weary travelers or slightly grander coach-houses, sometimes - and Holmes and Watson wait out a day there if the weather is particularly inclement or one of them is lagging. They raid the pantries, and luxuriate as much as they can by sleeping on the mattresses, avoiding the ones gone green with mould and damp where the rain has drenched them through the blown-out windows. Watson thinks maybe they should want some time apart, or that he would have wanted some time apart had he ever considered spending this long without speaking to anyone except Holmes, but then comes the realisation that, pleasantries and patients aside, Holmes has been his main source of conversation since he returned from the war. Beyond that, though, there is also the simple truth that Watson just doesn't want Holmes to be out of his sight for very long. 

They share beds even when out of the tent for a night: the world is bleak and empty around them, and as childish as it might be, Watson can't shake the feeling that if he falls asleep without Holmes's immediate presence, he might wake up alone, like the world might simply spirit Holmes away as it seems to have done everybody else. It's just another thing they don't talk about; the first time it happens, Watson lingers for a fraction too long in the doorway as Holmes drags the dry sheets he found in the unharmed linen closet at the top of the stairs onto a dingy double bed, and Holmes looks up, fractious and tired, and snaps, Do come on, Watson, and Watson settles down onto the mattress without another word.

The only way they have to ascertain how quickly or otherwise they are progressing down the country, not including the unreadable cracked or fire-scorched milestones they come across occasionally, is Holmes's own encyclopedic knowledge of rural Britain, but even that is less of a boon than they anticipated. Natural landmarks are sometimes gone and other times near unrecognisable, and Holmes is now going mainly on the buildings they pass rather than the landscape they are stuck in. At any rate, Watson knows that they are not covering ground at an especially galloping pace: it takes under a day to reach Yorkshire by train and only marginally longer by coach if minimal stops are taken and the horses changed as few times as possible, and people can and do walk this journey on the very same turnpike road if they must. Holmes and Watson must, but it is taking considerably longer than the expected handful of days. Watson estimates it has been a week, maybe two, since this all began, but the accuracy of his sense of time has been dwindling at the same rate as the feeling in his extremities; politely put, it is hardly reliable. They've passed York, Watson knows that much, and that was some time ago, but beyond that he can't be sure exactly where they are.

Most nights he doesn't dream; other nights he dreams of Mrs Hudson's cooking, or dry sheets, or, once, barreling up the stairs two at a time after hearing gunshots, only to find Holmes blowing patriotic holes in the parlour walls. That's as explicitly as he dreams of Baker Street, in quick, bright flashes between dreamlessness, like it's too sore a subject even for his subconscious to poke at. They don't talk about home, beyond how close they think they're getting, and definitely not about what they might find there. Watson isn't used to this level of theorising, which is to say, none.

Then, one night, completely out of the blue, Holmes looks up from his forkful of half-heartedly warmed, previously canned food and says, deadly serious, What if there were such a thing as magic?

Watson splutters a bit around his own tasteless bite of dinner. They are huddled just inside the tent, unwilling to give up and rest quite yet but equally unwilling to stay out in the drizzling rain. Watson says, Magic? Do you mean spiritualism?

Holmes scoffs, putting down his fork. No, Watson, that is a self-perpetuating charade employed for individuals to profit from the human inability to process grief. He pauses. But magic - what if there were truly such a thing? What if there were people with abilities beyond the natural range? Would you accept that one could hypothesize the existence of magic as readily as the idea of the railway was once suggested?

Watson frowns. In theory, I suppose, but there was a science behind the railway, Holmes, and engineering possibilty. What is there to suggest that there is any person capable of operating outside the limitations of nature?

Holmes gets to his feet. That's just it, he says, and he's pacing again, heedless of the rain. Who could have thought, years ago, that one day man would travel near two hundred miles in under a day? Or that a man could remain unconscious whilst his leg was sawn from his body? Is it any more preposterous to suggest that there are still things that we cannot even begin to conceive of, simply because we do not yet have the capacity to understand the intricacies of how they may be achieved?

Watson stands too, goes to grasp Holmes by his elbow and pull him back out of the rain, but Holmes shakes him off.

Don't you see, he says, insistent and impassioned, it would explain everything: why we meet no-one on the road; why there was no warning. It would explain even why there seems to be no explanation! How could there be, when we do not consider every possibility? You do see, don't you, Watson? You see that magic would explain this?

What I see, Watson says, gently, is that you are at a loss, and no new information is yielding itself to aid you. You have been in situations like this a hundred times before. He takes hold again of Holmes's arm, and Holmes lets him. Watson continues, Certainly, magic is one theory. But, Holmes, I am certain there are other explanations that we do not yet have sufficient facts to form. He pauses. The rain is the light, deceptive kind that initially suggests that you will not get too wet up until you leaves the house without an umbrella and arrives at your destination in clinging, clammy clothes and chilled right through to the bone. They have not yet dried out from the shower earlier in the day, from when they were walking past frosted-over, unsown farmland and had seen a lone scarecrow still standing guard over a wardless field. 

We will keep on, Watson tells him, firmly. We will return to London, and -

And what? snaps Holmes. Just what are you expecting to find?

There are several things Watson would like to say in reply to this. Presenting itself most vehemently is _I don't remember it being my idea to set out for London_. _Why are we bothering if you hold out no hope of reprieve?_ is another, meaner, contender. What Watson says is, Come out of the rain, Holmes.

Holmes looks up at him from under rain-slick hair. He holds his gaze briefly - searching, Watson can assume, for something Watson apparently does not provide - and then nods, minutely, and they duck back under their canvas roof.

Later, when Watson is half asleep, Holmes says, Those men we met. Neither of us could explain how they could simply vanish. They are withholding something from us, without question: perhaps they would also suggest the art of magic?

Watson lies still. They have seen Harry and Draco on several occasions since their memorable first meeting in the abandoned Yorkshire house. They are never close, and never stay for long, but Holmes will point them out as standing on a hill some fields away, or the flash of Harry's red shirt through a barren set of trees, or running somewhere unknown just on Holmes's and Watson's horizon. Watson will admit to being curious about them - they do not seem to be from anywhere he has ever visited and they are certainly not as bound to the rigueur of formal social conventions as most, though certainly not all, of the men in Watson's acquaintance - but he is also willing to admit that these are not the most explicable times, and for anything he may be finding odd about these men he is sure there are a dozen things they themselves are questioning about him. For example, a few nights back, he had to bind his and Holmes's shoes with torn strips of sacking to try and hold them together: though impeccably made, shoes from before were not made for this particular after. Watson thinks that peculiarities are to be expected with the way the world seems to be working now, functioning in a near constant haze of precipitation and ash blowing in numbing winds, but he doesn't say any of this aloud. Instead, he remains still, and keeps quiet.

All right, says Holmes, softly. Goodnight.

Watson waits until Holmes's breathing has evened out into the steady, dependable rhythm that means he is asleep. It is one of the few times, Watson muses, somewhat detachedly, that anything about Holmes can be described as steady, or dependable. This night, it is Watson who rolls to lie at Holmes's back, letting his arm drape across Holmes's chest. It is not even the coldest of nights they have suffered, but something slow and sleep-fuelled in Watson is suggesting it is the right thing to do, and something else is saying, if there is comfort to be sought now, he should seek it.

Then his body decides that is entirely too much thought for one night, and he falls asleep himself.

When he wakes to a dawn-grey and thankfully rainless sky, Holmes is already up and offers him a lukewarm breakfast with a hint of a sheepish smile.

Thank you, says Watson, and Holmes says, Also, I may have broken the pan.

How is that even - Watson reconsiders. _Naturally_ , he says, instead, and Holmes inclines his head in placatory, self-deprecating agreement, and they eat, and pack up, and set off again.

 

*

Watson wakes in the early grey hours of dawn. They stopped the night before in what was once a church, an old church, all old, worn stone the colour of the new, worn sky. The whole front has gone, but it's big enough that far enough towards the pulpit, they're dry. On his right, Holmes sleeps, lying on his side under his coat and the sheets they've been using as a tent. His face is slack in rest. Watson stays still for a moment, and looks, and doesn't think.

There's a rattle in his chest, and he gets up, propping himself on his elbows first, stiff in the cold of the morning. The wind whips through the open front of the church like it has done all night, like it's looking for them. 

Found us, Watson thinks, but then again, they're not the ones who've been lost.

The rattle comes back. He can hear it when he takes a breath in. There's an antechamber further back, and he goes there slowly, bad leg uncooperative and dragging slightly in the layer of ash and ruin on the consecrated flagstones. He'd go outside, but it's raining too hard. He might suggest they wait out the day here, but Holmes will most likely object. It's not been long since they last paused their journey, a few days ago in a stable left standing whole by the wreck of its coach-house. The rain hammers down on the church roof that held out the apocalypse; Watson idly thinks that he'd quite like to thank the architect. Then he coughs. It hurts, in a dull sort of way, and then it burns enough that his eyes water and he bends double, hands on his knees for balance. He coughs and coughs until he has to spit and it comes out mucus and blood in the blown-in, unswept leaves.

It's hardly a surprise, but it's not exactly welcome, either. 

When he's done - and he kicks some of the fallen bracken over the mess, because it frightens him a little, to be facing something as mundane as illness, here - he walks to the broken window that overlooks the graveyard. He leans his arms on the windowsill. The wind blows rain into his face; drops of it streak through the grime on his face, through the ash on the floor of the church. He wipes his eyes dry and watches the bare tree branches moving, like they're searching out their leaves, clustered and dry around Watson's wet feet. Then - though he's certain they weren't there even a moment ago - there are two men, stalking through the rain like it's of no concern, a secondary priority to continuing the blazing row they seem to be conducting. Watson can't hear them properly. They haven't seen him.

 _Malfoy_ , Harry spits, exasperation clear even this far away.

They stop just as the wind drops for a minute; without the rain in his eyes, Watson can see quite clearly as they kiss, gripping at each other's faces, the hems of their wet shirts. There's nothing shocking to it, like Watson always expected there to be when he was younger and hearing whispers about soldiers far from home, and it's nothing like how he has kissed the women he's courted, the few that there have been. It makes his heart pound, and his chest tight, and he turns away.

Watson? Holmes is awake now.

I'm here, he calls back, and he leaves the window and the rain and the men outside.

They do spend the day there. Holmes looks him up and down appraisingly when he returns, just like when Watson would come home after losing the next two months' rent and Holmes would just know, and blessedly keep silent until Watson had either slept it off or had had another a drink. 

It won't do us any harm to take a rest, Holmes says, sounding out the words with uncharacteristic care, keeping his eyes low to the ground.

Ordinarily, Watson would protest that he's not that delicate, or maybe make some remark about Holmes finally seeing reason and embracing his own limitations, but his lungs hurt, and his head thumps, and he's slept in the cold for weeks now.

You're right, he says, because everything is always easier if Holmes thinks it was his idea. We'll wait till tomorrow. Maybe the rain will stop.

Maybe, Holmes agrees. 

 

*  
A couple of nights after they leave the church, it isn't raining, for once, and Holmes declares with a sweeping air of grandeur, that he is going to put up the tent that night and it will be the warmest, driest tent that they have slept in thus far.

Watson humours him - because, yes, Holmes has many and varied practical skills, but there is a reason Watson has been the one to erect their sleeping quarters every night so far in the driving rain or the blinding snow and that is simply because he is less prone to violent fits of frustration if his fingers slip and the whole thing collapses. Also, Holmes has a worrying talent for starting a fire under any conditions, which has come in extremely handy in the incessant gales.

Holmes is under a mound of canvas and sheeting, hefting the tent poles about with unnecessary vigour so that they poke up through the fabric on occasion like an unborn child kicking at its mother for attention. It's equally unnerving to behold.

Stop showing off, Watson says, loudly.

It is at this moment that Harry appears without warning about a yard away from the fire. Watson jumps.

Sorry, Harry offers, coming closer. Malfoy's on his way. Just thought we'd drop in and see how you were doing. He shifts a little from side to side, suddenly awkward. We've been sort of keeping track of you.

I thought so, Watson says. Something had to explain why we keep catching sight of you. He doesn't ask where Harry just came from. He might as well ask why it won't stop snowing: he's just not going to get an answer.

Curious, Harry says, You did?

We've seen you a few times, Watson tells him. You're in the distance, mainly. You don't seem to stay very long in the same place. You come and go too quickly to - he stops.

What do you mean? Harry asks, but something in his voice tells Watson that he's postponing rather than avoiding the explanation. Watson likes straight answers; he likes Harry. He thinks about the best way to say what he's been wanting to say since that night in the church but though he's the writer, the right phrase won't come.

I saw you with Malfoy, he says, clumsily. In the graveyard, two nights ago.

You did? Harry goes pink. Then he sort of blanches, and it's only in thinking how young it makes Harry look young that Watson really realises Harry can't be that much younger than Watson himself. Harry says, Oh, God, isn't that, like, illegal now? And he's - he waves at the tent - a detective. Watson thinks automatically, _private consulting detective_. 

Harry narrows his eyes. Not that it can really matter, what with, you know, the untimely apocalypse falling and everything. 

No, Watson says, and then, feeling sick: It doesn't matter, of course it doesn't matter. He hesitates, and that makes his stomach churn harder; the world lies smitten in ashes around his feet and he can't talk about this one, petty little part of himself without his heart hammering like he's going to be rattling a tin cup across iron bars if he says another word. He struggles for a moment, and then he says, quietly, Especially not to me.

Harry looks at him for a minute. He looks over at the tent. Inside, Holmes swears and calls out, after a moment, Watson, rest assured that I am a man of many talents and I will erect this tent in no time. I can only hope that you are making as merry with the fire as I am with in the art of tent construction.

Watson shouts back, You know how to put up a tent.

Holmes shouts, I know I know how to put up a tent.

You know I know you know how to make a tent, Watson calls, turning away from Harry. Stop telling me you know you know how to put up a tent and just put one up.

When he turns back, Harry looks sympathetic and a touch reminiscent. It probably doesn't matter to him either, you know, he says.

I, Watson starts. I don't - but then he is interrupted by two things happening simultaneously: there is a cry of jubliation from the direction of the slowly rising tent; Draco taps Watson on the shoulder.

Your fire's going out, Draco tells him.

Shoddy workmanship, Holmes opines, ducking out from inside the newly constructed tent and striding over to meet them. Hello again. Have you come to reveal the wonders of the apocalypse to us at last?

There is a distinct change in the atmosphere with Holmes's arrival. Watson is almost glad of it. Draco tenses up; Harry looks slightly rueful and fidgets with the belt loop on his trousers.

Not at the present time, says Draco, coldly.

 _Malfoy_ , Harry warns. 

Look, says Draco, shifting his weight to his other leg and scowling in Holmes's general direction, there's no point in us explaining any of this to you. Either you won't believe us, or you won't understand, and I've got far more valuable things to be doing with my time than dealing with a pair of Muggles having an existential crisis. For one, I've sort of got my hands full trying to reverse an _untimely ice-age_ , so if you don't mind - 

Watson finds himself getting inexplicably defensive. You might be surprised what we can believe, he says, trying not to bristle. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Holmes grin wickedly at him.

I'd listen to the good doctor, Holmes tells them, folding his arms, and, perversely, he seems to be enjoying this. These handsome exteriors truly do disguise our rapier-like intellect and devilish powers of deduction. For example, I trust I would not be mistaken in saying that you are about to reveal to us that you have the ability to perform magic, or some such chicanery. He's clearly relishing the moment: briefly, he looks like the Holmes of before, pacing up the floor of Scotland Yard to give London's finest a dressing down.

It starts to snow again. The night is getting darker. Watson involuntarily glances up at the sky, and when he looks back, Harry catches his eye, gives him a small, contrite smile.

I'm sorry, Harry says, but we really don't have time for this.

Of course not, Holmes demurs, turning away. Watson knows this tactic: this is supposed to entice his conversational opponent to show their cards. By this point, most people are eager to aid or outsmart the great Sherlock Holmes, and a moment of pandering to their vanity usually gets them talking. Then again, these two don't seem to fall under the category of 'most people'.

Holmes turns back. Harry and Malfoy have disappeared. Unlike the last time, there is no chance they could have slipped away: Watson was looking straight at them, and then they just weren't there to look at. Watson blinks, not quite able to take this in. Holmes's face is blank of anything other than absolute shock; it's the first time, Watson thinks, that he's seen Holmes this off his guard. Of course it is: the end of the world has given him few problems, the cannibals and endless, endless walking nothing but trivial concerns when faced with this. There are no footprints leading away. Harry and Malfoy are simply no longer standing where they just were.

I'm right, Watson, Holmes breathes, something almost reverent about it. Magic, Watson, think about it - 

Watson interrupts. It's only a noise in the back of his throat, a negation, but Holmes falls silent. There is hope shining in his eyes, and Watson, unable to look upon that, here, has to duck down on the pretext of rekindling the ebbing fire. He had thought their hope gone; perhaps, if he had not, he had wished it gone. He knows how to endure the unendurable but he cannot suffer it under the burden of expectation.

Holmes drops onto his haunches beside him, something fierce blazing in his face that Watson associates with the smell of sweat and blood, watching Holmes in the precise moment before he claims unapologetic victory in the sparring ring. 

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however impossible, must the truth, Holmes says, fervently. It makes Watson's chest hurt in a way that has nothing to do with the persistent pain in his lungs.

Holmes pitches his voice lower, softer. Watson, he says, rolling it out like he did the night the world burned outside the window. 

Watson can't listen to it. He twists up and away in a movement that makes his leg cry out, makes him have to limp hard on the few steps that take him back into the tent. Lying down, he stretches out until he's sore with it, and then he turns over onto his side, and all he can hear, over and over in his mind, is Holmes saying his name

 

*

 

They come across a house out of nowhere late one afternoon. It sits in a small clearing; wooden, the same colour as the dying trees around it, it is all but hidden until they're almost pressed against its porch. They've left the road behind for the night: Watson can't sleep too close to it anymore. It is foolish, he knows, but it has an inexorable presence and in the dark, listening to Holmes sleep, or pretend to sleep, it feels like the road will keep going on, and on, and they will never see its end.

The house seems to be empty. They exchange glances: Do you want to go inside; We need supplies. The door is jammed shut, and Watson can't spare the energy to break it down, won't suffer Holmes to either, so they break a window instead. The glass breaking is one of the loudest noises they have heard since the last crack of wrathful thunder. Holmes hooks a leg over the window sill and hops on through, lithe and effortless, and Watson hefts his pack higher on his shoulder, sighs, and clambers through after him.

They are standing in a kitchen; they turn, slowly, taking in the pantry door to the left and a large oven in front of them, cupboards with singe marks black on the light wood higher up on the walls. There is dried blood on the floor, and gouts of its fresher, brighter twin smeared across the stone counters. 

Let's make this quick, Watson suggests, saying it like it's a foregone conclusion, but Holmes is still revolving on his heel, scanning the room. Horror prickles up Watson's back, and he holds it back, standing his ground. 

Check the cupboards, Holmes tells him, and Watson grits his teeth, seeing Holmes do the same. Something falls at his feet the moment he pulls open the first door, and he jumps back on an adrenalized instinct before he even recognises what it is.

How delightful, Holmes murmurs, suddenly close behind him. His voice is low, and rough, and brushes across the bare skin at Watson's neck, just where his jacket has ripped. I see we have stumbled in on some of the more civilised dregs of the human race. Perhaps it would be best if we did not rely too long on their unknowing hospitality.

Perhaps, agrees Watson, calmly, and he kicks the severed arm off his shoes.

Holmes throws open the rest of the cupboards with a practised disinterest, and Watson follows behind to scoop up any cans that stand untouched behind their more gory neighbours, ignoring the smudges of human remains on the faded labels. 

We should check the pantry, Watson says, and moves to do that.

Wait. Holmes catches his arm. Standing a couple of paces back from the door, he takes Watson's cane from his hand and uses it to work the door handle. The door comes ajar by degrees until Holmes gives a tug, and it ricochets open. It is not a pantry; there are no shelves inside, only a trapdoor that's peeling faded, white paint. In a hot and unexpected rush of cowardice that makes him swallow with guilt, Watson knows, knows he can't open it.

Holmes's hand tightens around Watson's forearm. Steady, old boy, he says. 

We should, Watson says, trying to keep the sick nerves in his belly out of his voice, we should check upstairs. There might be something up there we could use. 

All right, Holmes says, after a moment. We'll check upstairs. As they turn away from the open pantry door, Holmes handing Watson's cane back as they go, Watson feels the sweat cool along his spine, and wonders whether Holmes is anxious too. His heart is racing like a sternly wound clock, telling him to get out, get out, get out. Whoever is staying here can't be too far away, judging by the blood drying slowly in thick, tacky stalactites on the counter edges, and Watson thinks, half panicked and half wry, that it would probably be to their advantage if they were not caught here.

The stairs are blanketed in a carpet too close in colour to the macabre display in the kitchen, and they creak as Watson climbs them. They find bedrooms with rumpled, stained sheets upon the bed, and a bathroom with sordid, cracked tiles, and Watson wants neither to touch nor take anything they find.

Let's go, he says, stopping Holmes as he peers out through the frosted-over bathroom window. We should go.

Holmes turns back to him, eyes glittering. Watson's heart gallops past a couple of beats. We should, Holmes agrees, but then that would mean passing the occupants of this house, who are just returning home bearing axes, and knives, and that seems like the more inadvisable course of action to take. The other option, I feel, is to _hide_ \- and he drags Watson into the dirty bathroom and pulls the door shut enough that it brushes against the doorframe. If Watson wanted to be dramatic about the situation - although he will allow that it is not exactly without tension - he would say that he could almost feel Holmes's pulse against the back of his own wrist, caught up still in Holmes's grip as he held Watson back behind him.

Voices carry up from downstairs. Watson hears the thud of weapons hitting the floor. He holds his breath, knowing Holmes is doing the same by the way his shoulders stay high and wire-taut, but lets it out in a rush of dread when he hears footsteps on the creaking stairs, muffling the exhale into the damp fabric of Holmes's tattered coat.

Holmes twists over his shoulder to find and keep Watson's gaze. Just like old times, he whispers, lips curling with a misplaced humour.

Indeed, Watson says, and waits for the tug on his wrist that means, simply, _go_.

They do go, fighting like they're in one of London's dark, overlooked alleyways rather than a house at the end of the world. Holmes sends the door out into the corridor, and the man doubles over with the impact; Watson kicks him in the back of the knees; Holmes punches him, twice, in his kidneys and shoves him to the ground. He goes down hard, and stays down, and Holmes straightens up to move to the top of the stairs. 

How many? Watson mouths, flattening himself against the opposite wall.

Holmes holds up six fingers, then grimaces, and flashes four more. He pulls a face: he can't tell from here. 

Watson spares a moment to pull a face of his own, and Holmes grins, manically, back.

That's about as long as Watson gets to reminisce, though, because an arm shoots out from the open door behind him - and he thinks, dully, somewhere in the back of his mind, _but I checked that room_ \- and he is dragged backwards down the stairs, kicking and bucking and struggling, but he can't gasp in the air he needs for the strength that will free him. His vision starts to black out, in patches, but he can still see Holmes, furious and coldly vengeful, pounding his way down after him.

Someone else cracks something over Watson's head, and he blacks out properly. When he comes round - he is sure it has only been a minute - he is lying on damp earth in the pitch black. It had been daylight only moments ago, so he heaves himself to his feet, forcing aside a stab of longing for his cane, and feels around for a wall. His hand finds something smooth and wooden, and he gets his other hand on it too. He bumps into something else, something that makes a wounded, animal sound, and he freezes. His jacket brushes his side, and he feels the shape of a forgotten box of matches in his pocket; he fumbles for it, strikes one and holds it out in front of him.

He is not alone in this cellar.

There are maybe twenty other people packed in with him, as thin as skeletons barely clad in the stained remnants of clothing, staring at him with what is unmistakably raw hunger.

It's, Watson tries, breath coming fast from fear or pain, it's all right, I'm not going to hurt you.

One of them lunges for him, and just before the match reaches his fingers and burns out, Watson sees the marks of human teeth on her arms. He gets another match lit even as he works his way backwards, and the others are coming for him too. Some of them don't have all their limbs; one, a _child_ , has slices carved out of his cheeks; another is still bleeding slowly, viscously, from a gaping wound in his side. 

Watson's back hits a wall; he turns his head to the side to avoid the closest hands and he sees what he was clutching before: the bottom of a staircase. His own feet seem to get in his way as he darts for it, dropping the guttering match and finding his way up with hands clutching at the edges of stairs. He hits a roof, and he swallows round something caught in his throat that feels like his heart is trying to abandon this place as fast as he is, but then he remembers the pantry that wasn't a pantry and the trapdoor that he couldn't face opening, and he works his shoulder up underneath where the stairs meet the roof and shoves. 

Nothing happens, and he can feel bony fingers scrabbling at his feet now, ripping at the hems of his trousers as he lashes out to break their grip. He shoves at the trapdoor again, holding his breath, and this time it flies open and Watson half falls onto the smooth tiles of the pantry floor. Holmes is above him, red in the face and completely out of breath - and behind him Watson gets the dim impression of people bearing down on him too, about to snatch him away - and he grabs onto Watson's arm and pulls.

Something pulls him back. He stares frantically down, and the empty, haunted faces of the bitten and scarred stare right back, tugging him down by the ankles, down to the darkness and the terror right gaping right beneath his feet.

Watson kicks out behind him, hard and frantic, and feels the bones of someone's face crack and give under the heel of his dress shoe. Holmes still has an iron grip on Watson's forearm - Watson can already feel it bruising - and he leans all his weight back into the pull; without the hands of the hopeless and consigned clawing him back, Watson scrapes up and out of the trapdoor in one immediate move, legs bumping on every wooden step and then again, harder, on the edge of the hole in the ground. He swings his body out and round as fast as he can - behind him, Holmes swears viciously and Watson hears him landing punches - and slams the door down flat, purposefully looking away from the gaunt hands still grasping for purchase, the eyes of people who have seen their own death visited viscerally on others right before their eyes.

He braces himself against the pantry wall and eases his way up to standing; his legs are shaking, his eyes aren't focusing, but when he blindly reaches out he grabs onto the sleeve of Holmes's jacket like he would always be able to find him, and together they kick and duck and elbow through the blood-stained men trying to force them back. They reach the hall, and Watson swings a candlestick down hard over the head of the man that's clawing for his eyes. He'd use his cane, but that's gone now, lost somewhere between Watson blacking out and waking up in the basement. There's only one more person in the hall with them, a woman, as crazed-looking as her male counterparts, and Holmes smacks her around the side of her face without even hesitating and then, on the pull of momentum, pushes her into the stair banister. The woman flips up, and over, and there's a muted, fleshy crack that Watson assumes is her neck breaking, but he doesn't stop to check because Holmes is at the door, bracing a foot against it and heaving on the handle, and it gives from this side and they are out, almost tripping down the wooden stairs of the porch. Watson isn't sure how many people are left in the house to follow them, and he doesn't dwell on it; movement is more important than thought at this stage, and so he moves, and he doesn't think about it.

They stagger out onto the frozen grass, bags still strapped around them and thumping into their sides, and Holmes's face is paler than the snow that crunches, the colour of old bones, under their feet. Watson reaches out and grabs his hand because they need to _run_ , and they do, fast and terrified, into the woods. They're still too visible. Watson is working on instinct, on muscle memory, and he drags Holmes to the ground, heaping leaves and ash over them both, keeping them down low behind a fallen oak. The tree has come up from its roots; they reach desperately to the sky, growing into the wrong space, finding light and cold where dark and warm should be.

They'll have to wait for dark, pray that they're not followed. Watson's wrenched arm throbs, and he presses it down into the chill grasp of the snow. He shivers.

All right? he whispers, huddling close to Holmes, close enough that he can feel Holmes's breath panting raggedly across the side of his own unshaven cheek.

Holmes shoots him a highly incredulous look. Sometimes, Watson, he says, keeping his voice as low as Watson's but unable to hide how it shakes, you ask the most staggeringly pointless questions.

*

Watson doesn't want to think about Baker Street anymore.

*

Night falls. A candle, a gaslight, something is lit in the house. Watson thinks, well, there's a waste of available resources.

They ease themselves up slowly, staying bent double for the first stretch away from the tentative beginning of the woods and into the thick of it. Then they run, full out, Watson counting down the strides he thinks his leg has left in it. Branches catch at their clothes; Watson, running second, catches the brunt of the snow falling from where Holmes disturbs it in the trees. The noise of their bags bumping against their backs, their legs, sounds shotgun loud.

They stop after a mile, two miles, both trying to keep their breathing locked quiet and hammering in their chests, and listen.

I think, Watson breathes out, bent over with his hands on his knees, I don't think they're following us.

Of course, just as he says that, he hears footsteps pounding determinedly behind them.

Come on, Holmes hisses, and Watson straightens up immediately and they dart off again.

The sound of footsteps follows them, and then, very distinctly, Watson hears a well-spoken male voice say, Fuck this.

There's two loud cracks directly in front of them, and Harry and Draco appear.

Draco is flushed and angry. You two are such _morons_ , he spits. How did you even _end up there_ , I don't - He grabs Holmes's arm; in the same instant, Harry gets hold of Watson's shoulder; Watson hears Holmes say, affronted, If you don't mind - 

\- and then they are standing somewhere which is very definitely not the oppressive, cannibal-infested forest they were just in. It's certainly an improvement, but it's not what Watson would call an _explicable_ one. 

My God, Holmes says, under his breath. Watson is still trying to catch his. I was right. 

Yes, all right. Draco is still impatient, checking his watch. It sits on a band on his wrist, not a pocket watch like Watson's, now broken, or Holmes's, which never came with them to begin with. Okay, so, this is what's going to happen now: we're going to tell you what you need to know, you're not going to ask us any questions so that my head doesn't just explode all over this charming white expanse of misery, and then we're going to go back to trying to get us all out of this highly unpleasant situation. Sound good?

Shut up, Malfoy, Harry says. He addresses Watson. You probably want to know a few things now, and - well, we can give you the answers.

There's a light in Holmes's eyes, that same fervor that so unsettled Watson before. What happened, he asks. What has happened to us?

Draco crosses his arms in a way that suggests he isn't amenable to this precise line of questioning.

Harry says, fast, It's not just you.

Watson says, We know. Holmes stares at him, inscrutable for a long moment, but Watson doesn't keep his attention long. It isn't a lie: Watson knew. He knew, something this size, it couldn't just be England. It felt too big for a retired army doctor and his brilliant rapscallion of a friend to be enduring alone.

Not that it matters, Draco mutters, not quite under his breath. Watson makes an indignant noise of protest. Harry seems to understand.

He doesn't mean that, he says. He's - he's a bit special, don't mind him.

Draco sounds like he's clamping down on a howl. _I'm_ special, he mutters, he says _I'm_ special and he wanders around with a _hedge_ on top of his head. Oh, how glad I am, in a daily sort of way, that he turned out to be the Chosen One and had statues made in his image. Not even _artists_ could do anything about that hair.

Harry says, What he means is, it _won't_ matter. Watson recognises that gleam on Harry's face. It says, _I can do this_. Harry continues, We can change this.

Watson coughs; beside him, Holmes is getting twitchy, and that will either lead to violence or something else equally undesirable. Harry shivers noticeably in front of them, and Draco rolls his eyes harder and points at a heap of bracken on the ground with something he snatched from his back pocket. It looks like a stick, but Draco mutters incendio and the bracken bursts into flame. It casts volatile light around them, which flickers in and out of shadow like it hasn't quite decided whether it's going to stick around. 

Holmes drags his attention away from the new fire and back to Harry, asking, sharply, How?

Go on, then. Harry nods at Draco, a shared joke plain in the way his mouth quirks up. Tell them. You know you like the big important moments.

And you don't? Draco sounds incredulous, but apparently the lure of being the centre of attention is stronger than his love of bickering. Watson thinks, unexpectedly, thank God, thank God we met these men, and doesn't know where it comes from.

Draco explains: I could spin this out for proper effect, but it's far too cold for that and we can't really magic up anything useful like things for getting me warm or making me some toast until we're away from you, so listen up because I don't want to have to say this again. We're wizards. We're from the year 2010. 

Holmes raises an eyebrow sharply, but gestures for him to go on. Watson's lungs stab from lying chest down in the snow for hours and then their brief, aborted sprint. He ignores the ache as best he can, and listens.

We work for the Ministry of Magic - That's sort of like the government, Harry interjects, but for wizards - yes, fine, Draco continues, tetchily, like your Muggle government.

What's a Muggle? Watson asks, and Holmes shushes him.

Draco looks amused.

Someone who can't do magic, Harry tells him, quietly.

 _Anyway_ , Draco starts up again, pointedly. We work for the Ministry as Aurors - Harry says, Sort of like spies, and Draco ignores it - and our wonderful job at the moment is not, I don't know, solving crime or foiling international plots of mayhem or rescuing pretty damsels in distress from ravenous sea monsters or anything productive like that - and, what, one little slip and you get sent to A Monkey Could Do This, Third Floor - 

Malfoy, Harry says, with the same tone of unending patience that is nevertheless on the wane that Watson hears himself using more often than not around Holmes. They don't need to know these things. Don't you want to be warm again?

Draco resumes, slightly faster. So, there was a minor incident involving a suspect and possibly we were somewhat _thorough_ in our confession-eliciting procedure but Potter has apparently decided that this isn't important information for you to know - even though I hate the third floor lift and it smells more like owl down on third than on any of the nicer, higher floors - and we ended up working for the Department of Magical Incident Interventions.

Time sometimes goes wrong, Harry tells them, which is marginally more informative. We fix it.

What do you mean, Holmes demands. He is standing very, very still. 

Things like this, Harry says, gesturing to the ruined, snowy expanse around them, they're not supposed to happen. I mean, they don't happen. There's another whole department of Alternate Histories; they help us figure out what might be going wrong and when. He pulls a rueful expression, like he's saying it's not his fault none of this makes any sense, but there it is despite that.

And, what? Holmes says, slowly, thinking aloud. This is time going wrong?

Well, _duh_ , says Malfoy, at the same time that Harry says, Yes.

Can you fix it? asks Watson. It bubbles up and out before he's thought about it. Out of nowhere, Holmes reaches out and catches hold of his wrist, though he doesn't look away from where Harry and Malfoy stand, Harry looking as though he's aiming for sympathetic and Malfoy looking like he's actively trying otherwise.

That's what we're trying to do, Harry tells him, more gently than Watson feels he has to.

This opinion is apparently popular, because Malfoy says, Not that you'd know we were trying to _save the world_ or anything, because we keep having to take detours to have these delightful conversations with you two cretins.

Why us? Holmes asks, suddenly. And what happened to everyone else? He asks questions like he's not used to not having the answers to them, irritated and edgy.

Watson adds, clumsily but thinking it needs to be said, Not that we're not grateful not to be dead.

Draco rubs a hand over his face. Like it isn't bad enough that I got stuck with Mister Self-Esteem Issues over here. Of course I'd end up with more of you.

Oh no, Watson says, dryly, Holmes's self-esteem is just fine.

Harry laughs; Holmes and Draco don't.

Holmes asks, abruptly, What about the Queen? Is she - 

Dead? Draco interrupts, off-handedly. Yes, probably. We haven't checked this time.

What do you mean? Holmes's voice is careful, and dangerous.

Harry jumps in. It's just, he says, when time goes wrong, it can either just disrupt timelines - cavemen invent the wireless, things like that - or end them too early, like this. Either way, magic gone wrong like that, it takes things with it. People tend to disappear. I mean, it takes a lot of energy for things to go this wrong, and there's not enough of it to keep people around as well.

Draco stares at him. Who told you that? he demands. It must have been someone very young or very stupid, because that's only _just_ right, Potter.

Harry says, It was Hermione, actually.

A charmed look comes over Draco's face and he says, in a lighter, softer tone, Ah, Granger. It's so good to know she continues to treat you at your own special intellectual pace. I suppose she's used to it now, living with Weasley for so long.

Harry gracelessly ignores him. Anyway, he says, certain people tend to get spared. It's usually the important ones, though you'd think they'd go first. It's like time can sense what needs to be saved. He shrugs, self-apologetic. Hermione tells it better.

That's all right, Watson tells him, at the same time as Holmes says, We're important? 

That's enough, Watson says, rolling his eyes, and turns back to Harry. Tell us how you're going to solve this.

Harry looks conflicted. There's a kind of - magical reset button, he tries, and then starts again. No, sorry, that's - what I mean is - 

Draco says, Shut up, Potter. He adds, Try and keep up, Watson, and Holmes elbows Watson in the ribs, smirking. Watson elbows him back.

Draco continues, The department of Alternate Histories has a list of the location of every temporal malfunction, and the Unspeakables - another department - take that list and leave a modified Portkey in the area. Rumour has it they cross it with a timeturner, he says, which doesn't make any sense to Watson at all. Comfortingly, for once Holmes looks equally lost.

A Portkey does what we just did when we moved you here out of the forest, Harry clarifies. Only, these Portkeys have been modified by the Unspeakables to transport not only the people who touch it but the rest of the disturbed time field back to when the trouble started, and no-one remembers a thing. Dumble - he stops. Malfoy shoots him a worried sideways glance like he doesn't really mean to and glowers at Watson when he sees Watson noticing it. Harry says, in a different, forcedly lighter tone of voice, An old headmaster of mine once told me that time was a mysterious thing. Harry shrugs; it looks determinedly casual. 

Draco looks away from Harry like it costs him something to do it. So, he says, normally what happens here is the Unspeakables get the list and drop an amped-up Portkey in the vicinity of the problem, and the Third Floor Department of Why Is This a Paying Job sends out two poorly educated idiots from Hufflepuff who always fancied themselves a bit Gryffindor at heart to, cross my heart, _touch the Portkey_ and everything resets itself.

You're lying, says Watson. Holmes squeezes on tight, and Watson jumps, forgetting Holmes's fingers were still closed around his wrist. Aside from anything else, Watson's numb skin appreciates the offer of heat from another frozen hand alongside it.

And? Holmes prompts. Evidently something went wrong with your assignment, or you two are more incompetent than I had realised, because if matters had progressed as you describe, we should at this very moment be sitting in our rooms and bickering over whether the curtains should be opened before noon, not standing in ankle-deep mud discussing the possibility of travelling through time with two self-confessed wizards living in a world two hundred years older than our own.

Draco goes a deep, injured red. It shows up even in the dim firelight, harsh against his pinched face, his pale hair. We are not incompetent, he hisses, and even Harry looks insulted by this accusation. We're just on probabation. Normally, the clean-up monkeys get direct instructions on where to find the Portkey, but, being as we're so deeply beloved in the Ministry at the moment, some under-caffeinated lunatic thought it would be a lark to send us in without directions. And let me tell you, Malfoy says, eyes flashing, we do not appreciate it.

This is all a bit much for Watson to take in. He can still feel phantom fingers wrapped unbreakably around his ankle and he shifts, rubbing the toe of his other shoe against it. 

Harry sees him move, and even if he doesn't understand entirely what Watson is feeling, he seems to have some notion. I'm sorry, he says, again, and it does just as little to help as it has the other times he's said it. But as soon - as soon as we find it, we'll come for you. We'll come and get you.

Let us come with you, Holmes says, on one long rush of breath. Watson turns to him, startled. We can help you look.

Draco snorts. Harry looks suddenly pitying, and embarrassed. It's an incongruous mix. I'm sure you could, he says, gently, and Holmes bristles at his tone. Harry says, It's just - you're Muggles. You wouldn't know it if you saw it.

How can you be sure? Holmes demands, angry for the first time. His hand slips from Watson's wrist. If you really can reverse time as you say, which in itself should be an impossible task, how is it any more impossible that we should be able to help? 

You're _Muggles_ , Draco repeats, in the same tone that certain members of old London society might say _homeless_ , like that is an end to it. He wheels on Harry. Come on. We've spent enough time here.

Harry says, Yes, and then he adds, to Watson, I really am sorry. We've checked almost everywhere, though, so we must be getting close.

I wouldn't count on that, Draco mutters, petulantly, and Harry stiffens like he's trying not to hit him. Watson recognises the strings of muscle holding rigid under his skin from the times he has had to lay a hand on Holmes's shoulder and usher him away from an obstinate or bureaucratic member of the constabulary. He coughs again.

We are doing our best, Harry continues, tightly. We'll come back for you soon, I promise. I _promise_. There's something blazing and honest about him, and Watson thinks, he's too young for this, and then he thinks, I believe him.

Not that it matters whether or not he believes him, because Harry and Draco disappear with a sound like a gunshot, and then he is left standing under a clear, cold sky next to Holmes, who is holding himself sharply motionless.

Well, then, Watson says, pointlessly. Magic.

Holmes doesn't say anything, which is never a good sign.

Watson lets the silence stretch out until he starts to worry that his fingers will be too cold to work the tent pegs.

We, he starts, surprised by how strained his voice sounds, we should put up the tent - and he coughs and coughs until he slips to his knees, hands freezing in the ever-present layer of snow. The blood that he spits out is harsh and dark against it in the angry light of the fire. As much as pride and stubbornness would have him deny it, Watson's head is spinning, and, undignified though it may be, he's suddenly thankful to be so close to the ground. Preoccupied with his lungs trying to shred themselves out of him - medically impossible as it is, that is what it _damn well feels like_ \- he barely even notices when Holmes thumps to the ground beside him, and only actually gives this any attention when Holmes puts a careful hand just below his shoulder blades, his other firm around Watson's waist.

All right, he says, more gently than Watson can ever recall him speaking, all right. Easy, old boy. Holmes's voice is shaking with an odd mixture of impotent ire and suppressed jubilation, but he stays there, holding Watson firm, until Watson has stopped retching and coughing into the snow.

Watson sits back on his heels. His shins are frozen now too, and they still haven't got the tent up. 

Holmes draws his hands away. I'll make up the tent, he says, carefully looking away from Watson, and Watson is grateful for it. He starts to get to his feet to help, but only when he reaches out instinctively and his hand closes on nothing at all does he remember that he lost his cane somewhere in the skirmish earlier on, and he's forced into fumbling upright, nothing to lean on. Then Holmes is there, again, bracing an arm under Watson's, flashing a bright, sharp smile up at him, and Watson leans in to him, automatically, because he will always lean in to Holmes.

Watson wakes to Holmes shaking him awake, and for a moment he thinks he's in his own bed and he's got patients in the morning, and it's far too early but Holmes nonetheless wants him to clamber up and down dirty dock passageways to join the search for someone who may or may not have run straight out of the country by now, the whole cockamamie idea based squarely on Holmes's entirely sleepless night, a draught more alcohol than would ever be advisable, and a tip-off from an Irregular, whom Watson has always, secretly, slightly distrusted. Then he shifts disgruntledly, and he's not lying on a mattress but the wintery ground, and he's not in his own bed but a heap of stolen sheets, and Holmes doesn't want him to do something ridiculous but he - and then Watson realises he doesn't know what Holmes wants, which is not a new sensation for him to have.

Watson, Holmes breathes, and the sound of it gives Watson the sudden, insane feeling that if he looks up right now, Holmes will be lit by fire roaring outside a window in the corridor at his back. He looks up. Holmes is just Holmes, face pinched and pale in the early morning frost, but something is lighting him up.

Watson, come on, Holmes urges, crawling backwards out of the tent, and Watson rolls over with a groan and heaves himself after him.

What is it? he says, rubbing at his sleep-sore eyes. Holmes, staring at something just behind Watson, merely nods for him to turn around.

Watson turns around.

There, in the clear air of the crisp, rainless morning, is the backlit cityscape of London herself.

//

 

Once, late at night, Watson had been woken by Holmes stumbling into his room, bruised and disheveled, clutching a hand to his chest and bleeding quite profusely from it onto Watson's floorboards.

"Terribly sorry, old chap," Holmes had said, leaning back against Watson's door even as Watson swung his legs out of bed, "but I seem to be in need of your assistance." Watson had only just been quick enough to stop him from hitting the floor when he fainted.

He'd got Holmes up onto his bed - it being the nearest surface available that wasn't the floor - and taken solid advantage of Holmes temporarily feeling no pain to examine his injured hand. There was a sizable, neat wound right through the centre of his palm, like something had gone almost straight through and out the other side. Watson winced on Holmes's behalf; being unconscious, Holmes made no comment about Watson's touching and _entirely unnecessary, Watson_ concern.

The wound had resulted in more blood than damage, for which Watson was grateful. It had nicked a bone but not broken it, and Watson did the best he could to clean and stitch and bandage it up. He resolved to make Holmes go to a proper hospital in the morning, but that decision would serve no purpose until he could have the appropriately bullying conversation with Holmes that would get him there; Holmes waking in a hospital when he had not last closed his eyes there was never an option Watson hastened to take, and he at least had the past experience to let him know he was making the right decision.

There was also the small matter of Holmes now occupying all of Watson's bed, and the blood on Watson's previously clean sheets. This, unfortunately, was nothing new nor shocking, and Watson had purchased a slightly more comfortable chair for the corner of his room for just these occasions. It wouldn't serve as a chair to offer guests, but it did mean he could fall asleep in it with one eye on Holmes and not wake up with his spine resembling the precarious glass structure Holmes had made out of loaded test tubes that nearly blew a hole straight through the landing wall when it had collapsed in the first few weeks of their living together.

Holmes stirred before dawn, shifting in the bed and grimacing before coming to properly and seeing Watson in the chair opposite. He brought his bandaged hand up to examine.

Watson said, "You are going to a hospital in the morning."

"It is the morning," Holmes said, voice thick with sleep and an attempt to disguise pain, "and I have not gone anywhere as yet."

"Only because I do not wish to further injure you by bodily dragging your unconscious carcass across London," Watson informed him. "But do please keep talking, because I'm sure something you'll say will give me the incentive to move past that sentimental notion."

Holmes huffed a laugh, and his eyes closed tight again.

Watson came to stand by the bed. He took Holmes's injured hand in his again, turning it slightly this way and that.

"I'm sure whatever you are doing is vital to my well-being," Holmes slurred, not opening his eyes, "but it is hardly conducive to my returning to sleep any time soon, so do you think you could resume your tender nursing once I have placed more than a couple of hours of unconsciousness firmly between myself and this incident?"

"What incident?" Watson asked, and Holmes said, almost immediately over the top, "It's really not important, nor impressive, so kindly stop asking."

"Answer me this, at least," Watson tried. "Is it self-inflicted or have you angered someone else by being your usual effervescent self unceasingly in their presence?"

"It's possible," Holmes told him, "that there may have been a misunderstanding during which more than verbal blows were exchanged."

"Ah," said Watson.

"But," Holmes continued, "it is equally possible that said misunderstanding may have occurred by the docks, too close to a tool box. For example."

Watson said, "Ah," in an entirely different voice.

"So to conclude," Holmes said, still talking mostly into Watson's pillow, "it would not be outside the realm of possibility to hypothesize that, if said altercation had taken place, a badly taken - or well placed, I suppose, depending on which side you were to view it from - punch could have sent me reeling to catch myself on the nearest solid object, and that nearest solid object may have been an open tool box, in which may or may not have been the implement to inflict such a disfiguring injury upon my delicate yet deadly fighting hand, but there is nothing to prove said theory any more than conjecture."

"I see," said Watson. "Out of interest, the other party in this hypothetical misunderstanding by the docks, how might he have fared?"

"Worse," said Holmes, and grinned.

"I would expect nothing less."

"And what did you take from his toolbox?"

"Thievery?" Holmes exclaimed. "Watson, I am shocked, shocked and appalled that you would cast such an uncouth aspersion on my blemish-free moral character."

Watson said nothing.

Holmes said, "Then again, if you were to check the right inside pocket of my jacket, you might find a monogrammed handkerchief sporting the same initials as the one I located beneath the pillow of the absent daughter of the enraged Colonel Smithes. An error on the young lady's part, I am sure, to leave such a beloved possession behind, but then again, if she left her family home both in haste and in the knowledge that she would soon be with the mysterious A.R.W. himself, what need would she have of such a memento? Hence, it lay forgotten, and with the orders from the Colonel that the young lady's room not be touched until my arrival, there it remained, waiting for me."

"All right, you've made your point." Watson dragged the chair over to the side of the bed and sank down into it. 

"I assure you I do not intend to move until the morning," Holmes told him.

"I know you don't," Watson said, "and, as such, neither will I."

Holmes raised an eyebrow in the way that made Watson's chest clutch, a schoolboy caught scratching dirty messages into his desk.

"Well," Watson attempted, "what sort of doctor could I claim to be if I left a patient suffering from blood loss alone overnight?"

"The kind that has patients in the morning and needs his sleep himself?"

"And since when has my practice been your concern?"

"I don't know what you mean," Holmes said. "I have always taken the utmost care over your ability to work."

Watson scoffed.

"Why are you so determined to blacken my name this evening, Watson?" Holmes was grinning more wildly. "Is it not enough for you that I am physically unsound?"

Watson folded his arms. "As much as I am enjoying your attempts to inveigle me into leaving you unattended for the night, doubtless so that you can slip out unnoticed to celebrate the confirmation of your theory with the aid of drink and the boxing ring, I feel I should let you know at this juncture that I will not be going anywhere. Cease your wittering, man, and go to sleep."

Changing the subject entirely, as was often his wont, Holmes said, closing his eyes, "But you have not yet asked me why a simple dock-worker would be in the possession of the monogrammed handkerchief of a disgraced nobleman."

"I was assuming," Watson told him, airily, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, "that the dock-man that you may or may not have fought this afternoon was in fact one and the same as Anthony Robert Williams, the noble recently purported to have gambled his fortune away but with whom you are about to tell me that the young daughter of angry Colonel Smithes has absconded and plans to elope. For who else but a man who had no use for tools except as a disguise would keep his monogrammed handkerchiefs in the same place as the tools of his trade? It must have been subterfuge, and a poor attempt at that."

"My dear man," Holmes said, and there was something low and almost crude in his voice. "You excel yourself."

And - well, Watson has reasoned, pain is like alcohol for removing logic from a mind, even a well-honed mind, or maybe Holmes was more asleep than awake, and Watson has nothing to suggest that he even remembers it at all - Holmes reached up his uninjured palm to fit as soundly against the line of Watson's jaw as if this was something he had done and perfected in the past. Watson caught his wrist but Holmes opened his eyes, and Watson stilled.

"Doctor," Holmes smirked, in the way that meant he knew Watson was about to raise a moral objection of some kind. There it was, like always: Holmes went through life like a game, and Watson was on the way to winning the round, and so Holmes would change the stakes

But Watson hadn't slept much, and Holmes was looking up at him with unfocused eyes, and so he let his free hand rest against Holmes's shoulder, warm through his bloodied shirt, and they stayed, awkwardly and together, until Holmes fell asleep again, and his arm dropped with the bonelessness of sleep to hang over the side of the bed.

*

Harry and Draco appear again at early dusk, just in front of where Holmes is starting to kindle their evening fire. Watson had posited that they keep going through the night, offering it from the intensity of Holmes's focus as they walked, but Holmes had stopped, and looked at him, and told him in no uncertain terms that they would make camp, and what was he going to do to stop him, he didn't even have his cane to hit him with.

We've found it, says Harry, leaving out any and all preamble. His face is all lit up with a savage pride that Watson has to turn away from. 

Draco, by contrast, is staring at Harry with a fondness that Watson has never seen in him before. We have, he confirms, so we can get you two out of here now and then we can go back to where there is coffee.

Yes, Harry says, because, as we all know, your caffeine habit is the most pressing issue at hand.

Shut up, Potter, Draco tells him, but Watson is barely listening to them. He can hear the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears. _That was fast_ , he thinks, but then again, Harry and Draco have been searching for this device for the entire time Holmes and Watson have been struggling their way back to London, so maybe the end of their hunt has not been as fortuitously brief as Watson initially judged. 

Holmes straightens up, something wild about his eyes. What are you waiting for? he asks. He keeps his back resolutely to the silhouette of London, fading raggedly into the dying evening light. Watson feels his chest constrict, and he coughs, and Holmes shoots him a fast, agonized look. He turns on Harry. Take us there, he demands.

And Watson thinks, _no_. He says it too, and his voice sounds hard even to his own ears. No, he says, again. Not yet.

What? Draco demands, eyes like flint.

Not yet, Watson repeats, and he has faced down fiercer adversaries. 

Holmes says his name, softly.

Watson says, without room for argument, Take us to London.

We can take you back, Harry says, gently, in the same tone Watson has heard cabmen use on startling horses. We can - 

I know, Watson interrupts, firmly, surprised that Holmes hasn't spoken up. And you will. But we have to go to London first.

 _Muggles_ , Draco swears, and Watson wheels round on him, feeling half mad.

We have walked for weeks, he says. We have walked in the snow, and the rain, and the mud, and when we couldn't walk we waited until we could. We have been beaten, and injured, and frozen, and fevered, and we did it all to get here. We can _see London from this hill_ , and we are not going anywhere until you take us to Baker Street and we see it for ourselves. He takes in a breath, unsteady with anger. We have come this far, he says. We are going to London.

Harry glances across at Holmes. Holmes nods, once, and his eyes do not leave Watson's face.

All right, Harry says, softly - Draco says, incredulously, All right? but Harry ignores him - and touches Watson's arm and Holmes's elbow, and Watson hears Draco swear once more - 

and then they are standing on a familiar rug in a familiar room, and they are home.

The roof is missing now, and one of the walls of the parlour has been blown out; Watson can stand by the fireplace and look straight out into the deserted, rubble-strewn street. The shop windows have all shattered outwards; once brightly coloured awnings are shredded and filthy, ash heaped dishearteningly grey over once cheerful reds and yellows; there is the shell of a hansom half on, half off the pavement. There are no people in sight; Watson thinks, there was nothing to come back for.

Holmes says, voice uncharacteristically uneven, If we had been here instead of - 

You'd be dead, Draco tells him, bluntly. Holmes nods, accepting it.

Quietly, Watson asks, Mrs Hudson?

Harry says, holding Watson's gaze, I don't know.

The wind rips through the room, billowing their clothes out around them. 

Can we go now? Draco is uneasy; it makes Watson uneasy. He watches Holmes pick his way through the detritus on the floor. He snorts, suddenly finding himself holding back a thrill of tasteless mirth.

Holmes looks up. He catches Watson's eye, and he snorts too. They grip the mantlepiece and laugh, choking on it, staring around at the pulpy remnants of papers, the scattered, ruined books, the lumps of stone from the wall now tumbled haphazardly across the floor.

Draco makes a disgusted noise, and pivots on his heel to stare out through the space that used to be a wall. Watson gulps in a couple of breaths and tries to calm down. Holmes is flushed a merry red, and it's all so inappropriate that it makes Watson feel almost normal again.

But Holmes says, Aren't you glad we came to London? and that sets Watson thinking about bite marks in bones and fingers grabbing at his ankles and coughing up blood in a desolate church, about Holmes putting up tents and not spouting theories every other minute, and about how he is standing in his own parlour and it doesn't have all its walls, and laughing, only laughing.

Let's get this over with. Draco is pacing the filthy rug now. Harry waits motionless behind him, close enough to reach out a hand to touch him, close enough to be intrusive if he were not the right person. It's exactly as close as Watson stands to Holmes.

They pull themselves together properly, though Holmes flashes Watson a wicked, quirking smile as he makes his way over to examine once more the wreckage of Baker Street.

Watson navigates around an overturned, water-damaged armchair and tries not - _Holmes curled up in thought, on his third pipe of the afternoon, knees drawn up under his chin_ \- to look at it. Instead, he too looks out into the street. A flash of movement on the opposite side of the road catches him by surprise, discernible even in the thickening night, and he takes a step forward, saying, There's someone there. A crack rings out and Holmes's face twists as he glances fast and horrified over his shoulder at Watson, and then there's a sharp, hot flare of pain in Watson's side and he thumps jarringly to his knees.

Holmes is by his side almost before Watson has hit the floor, getting an arm around his back to lie Watson down, Watson's head rolling loose on his shoulders.

Gunshot, Watson says, indistinctly, words slurring already. Put pressure on it. Holmes is already there, shrugging his jacket off fast and holding it hard against Watson's side. Watson watches, detachedly, as his blood shows up on it even through the grime.

Do something, Holmes hisses, craning his neck back to find Draco, voice gruff with the savage, helpless anger Watson rarely hears. You can do _magic_ , so _do_ something. 

Everything comes and goes for Watson after that. He just gets flashes of what's going on, coming in and out of awareness. Holmes bowing his head over Watson; Harry kneeling by his side, muttering indistinctly under his breath; Draco darting across the room with his arm outstretched, screaming something vicious that Watson doesn't understand; a warmth in his side that's neither unpleasant nor agreeable. He closes his eyes against it, and wonders how you might go about trying not to die. He doesn't think it's like this, just letting everything happen around you while you bleed out onto a rug so dirty it's rotting where you've fallen. 

He tries instead to focus on something tangible, and opening his eyes is no longer really an option, and there's a rushing in Watson's ears that he's determined to believe is the wind, so he ignores that and the metal taste in his mouth and -

\- and there's Holmes's fingers grasping Watson's own, and Watson can't squeeze back but Holmes is there, and that's what Watson concentrates on - 

\- and Watson has an admittedly narrow frame of reference, given that he's been alive for the duration of his life, but this certainly doesn't _feel_ like he's dying. 

He blinks, and that's something he didn't think he'd be able to do again. Holmes's fingers tighten painfully around Watson's hand, and Watson thinks it takes a strong grip to be noticed over the pain of a bullet wound.

Except - except he can't feel the bullet wound anymore. He swallows, and waits, and slowly, everything starts to come back to him.

Is it working? 

Yes. Harry, reassuring. It just takes a little time.

We don't _have_ time. We need to get out of here. Draco, impatient.

Holmes again, snarling, I'm not leaving him.

Watson smiles. That'll make a change, he says, croakily, and opens his eyes.

The look of pure, blank relief on Holmes's face hurts more than being shot.

Watson, Holmes breathes, and it means, _Thank God_.

I'm all right, Watson says, short of breath, trying to sit up. Holmes, I'm all right, everything's all right. It blatantly isn't, because the apocalypse has still happened, but Watson doesn't seem to be dying anymore and that expression is slowly fading from Holmes's face, and, right now, that's as all right as Watson needs.

Holmes looks at him in absolute disbelief for a long moment, and the wind howls around them, and then Holmes grabs Watson by the collar and yanks them together, and it's more violent relief than a real kiss, but it is a kiss.

You _idiot_ , Holmes breathes, still gripping what remains of Watson's ragged shirt collar in tight, scared fists. You absolute - He brings their mouths together again, hard, and Watson thinks, _it's about bloody time_.

I hate to interrupt, drawls Draco, who obviously doesn't, but do you think you could keep your muggle fornicating to a minimum so that we can get on with reversing the end of the world? Thanks a bunch.

Holmes pulls away insomuch as their mouths are no longer touching, but he presses his forehead against Watson's and Watson, squinting down through wet eyelashes at Holmes's blurred face, too close to Watson's own to be clearly defined, sees him smirk.

What happened to the man who shot me? That makes Holmes move away properly, but only so Watson can actually see Draco to ask.

Draco stands as still as though the wind were not inviting him to stagger, urging them all to cluster together as it blusters in uninvited through the broken wall. He says, an icy evenness to his voice, He won't be a problem anymore.

Watson expects Harry to say something about Draco's fondness for melodramatics, but melodramatic is what the situation would seem to require and the moment passes unremarked.

We need to get out of here, Harry says, instead, and Watson, accustomed to anticipating instructions, starts to try and stand.

Don't be so ridiculous, Holmes tells him, moving in close again as easily as if he had done it time and time before - and, Watson realises, he has done, he just hasn't paid it proper attention until now. It seems almost perverse, that when he finally lets himself look at Holmes, Holmes is covered in grime and streaked with rain and probably smells more than the times he's fallen into the Thames - which Watson highly doubts were all intentional, no matter what Holmes claims - and yet all Watson wants to do is look.

But he bats Holmes away to try and stand up, and Holmes brushes his protest aside and shifts around Watson to loop an arm around his back.

Struggling awkwardly up to his feet, Watson asks, so that he can think about something other than the way his leg is cramped and angry, Will we remember? He lets Holmes take most of his weight.

Sorry? Harry moves to take Watson's other arm to help, but Watson shrugs him off. Harry steps back again; Holmes, briefly, looks delighted.

My _God_ , you're possessive, Watson teases.

I don't know what you mean, Holmes tells him, straight-faced. It can hardly be thought a negative quality to guard one's own belongings.

And I am one of your belongings, am I? says Watson, and it's like all the other times they've done except this isn't a fight, and the answer isn't going to make Watson angry.

Holmes says, perfectly levelly, Of course you are, like this armchair - he kicks it - and all those books.

Actually, Watson says, the chair was mine.

Moving on, Draco says, shoving his way back into the conversation, let's get on with it. There's a shower waiting for me in two hundred years time, and it would be rude to keep it waiting.

It'll be ruder to use up all the hot water, Harry mutters, and Draco says, Potter, you never really grasped the whole concept of _being a wizard_ , did you?

Watson shifts to get his weight more firmly on his good leg. The ache still clutches in his lungs, and his leg is still cramping and belligerent, but when he drops a hand down to the blood all over the side of his shirt, there's no wound beneath it. As stupid as it sounds, as much as he's seen, it's only this that lets Watson believe in magic. Up until this moment, there'd always been the nagging possibility that maybe they had both run mad, snow-blind and crazed with an inevitable fever, but this - this is Watson knowing he was dying and yet continuing to live. It is impossible, medically, rationally or otherwise, for there to be no wound. Watson believes in magic; Holmes keeps steadying him. 

Watson asks, again, Will we remember what happened, when you take us back?

No, Draco scoffs, bluntly, at the exact same time as Harry says, Yes.

Draco rounds on him. You're such a romantic.

No, I'm not, Harry retorts.

Time is going to _reset_ , Draco says. These two will just end up right back in the middle of their ordinary lives like nothing happened, because nothing will have happened. I know you're not quite as sharp as the rest of us, Potter, but even you have to understand that.

I know, Harry tells him, going an angry red. I just - I think they'll remember.

You won't remember. Draco addresses them properly. Don't listen to the Boy Wonder over here. 

If a person has experienced something, Holmes says, and Watson would think him calm except for his tightening grip on Watson's arm, anything, it changes them. We have been changed. He doesn't look at Watson. We will remember.

Fine, Draco says, throwing up his hands, hold onto to your little delusions if that'll make you happy, just, come _here_ \- 

\- and Draco grabs Holmes's arm and Holmes grips harder still to Watson, and Watson closes his stomach jerks in what is now an unsettlingly familiar way, like he's leaving his organs behind with the wreckage of his home, and then he opens his eyes and they're standing on a beach.

It is black night now, and Watson can't see the sea but he can hear the waves and smell the salt in the air. This feels like the very end of the world, like the dark and the sibilance of the waves is all that's left - and then Holmes squeezes his arm again, and Watson thinks the world might still have something left to give.

You did want me to get out of London, Holmes tells him, low voiced and darkly amused, and Watson affectionately swats at him, and tells him to be quiet.

Ready? Harry is somewhere behind them.

Watson turns, but it's too dark for him to make out where Harry might be, so he just says, Yes.

Holmes says, No.

Oh my _God_. Draco sounds very near the end of his tether. Watson doesn't need to see to know that he has rounded on Harry. Next time, we're letting them get eaten by cannibals. Then, presumably to Holmes: Why not?

We'll wait till morning, Holmes says, uncharacteristically unexpansive. Just - wait till morning.

It's cold, but it's been colder, and the wind from the ocean is less primal than the one that's been snatching at their tent for days. Watson remembers, belatedly, dropping his bags in Baker Street and never picking them back up.

We are not waiting - Draco begins, but Harry interrupts.

It'll be easier to find the Portkey in the morning, he tells him. There'll be more light and less risk of you slipping on a rock and breaking your precious face. 

Draco says, My face is not precious, and Harry says, ignoring him, Delicate little Pureblood bones.

They're probably glaring at each other now. Watson finds Holmes's hand on his arm, and holds it tight.

Draco relents. In the morning, then, he says, at length, and mutters something else unintelligibly under his breath, and a fire springs up about ten feet away from where Watson is standing. The warmth hits him fast enough to give him chills, shivering with heat and the brisk sea breeze.

He clutches on to Holmes, unnecessary now that there's light but still unwilling to let him go, and moves closer to the fire.

The morning, then, Watson says, so only Holmes can hear him, and Holmes says back, a catch in his voice that makes Watson tense up, The morning.

Watson puts an arm around Holmes's shoulders, suddenly unable not to touch him, not to have him close, and unashamed to act on it. Holmes leans against him; Watson has always let Holmes lean against him.

 

*

The daylight is cresting over the waves, pale and misted as all the rest of the dawns Watson has seen since they've been on the road. The sea is grey. Waves crash down far out away from them, the surf not white by the time it rushes out around their ankles and curls ashamedly back. The air tastes like salt, and freedom.

Holmes and Watson stand side by side, staring out over the sea.

You ready? Harry asks them, hovering near a rock pool.

Watson squints. Harry crouches down, peering into the still water, poking a hand in to move aside the swirling seaweed. He looks a little like worship might look now that there's nothing else left, small and squatting on an unsteady surface, but there, and smiling. There, he says. He cranes his head back to find Draco, who comes to stand behind him. Look, Malfoy. I've found it.

You have, says Malfoy, and even Watson, not really listening, can hear the sheer, unguarded relief in his voice.

He curls his fingers into Holmes's. Ready? he says.

Holmes has red eyes and pale skin and he's lost too much weight; Watson is wearing shoes bound up with the remnants of their burlap food sacks; he is cold down to his bones, and Holmes's bones, and he holds on tight to Holmes's hand and doesn't want to let go.

Holmes squeezes back. His hand is shaking in Watson's grip. It's like the end of the world all over again, back in that little bathroom listening to the flames. Watson, he says, and it means, yes.

Watson wants to kiss him, wants to drag him in by his collar and grab at handfuls of his dirty, ragged shirt, taste the mud on his mouth, but he can't turn away from the sea. If he looks at Holmes now - 

Are you _ready_ , Malfoy snaps, from behind them. The edge to his voice means he's scared out of his mind, Watson knows. 

Yes, says Watson.

Right then, says Harry.

Malfoy grabs Watson's other hand, says, sharply, Do not let go, do you understand?

There's a jerk under Watson's ribs, sudden, like he's being pulled backwards, and his heart pounds and pounds, and he turns to Holmes, desperate, and Holmes is smiling back at him with an old, familiar ease and the world goes bright, bright white, and -

*

It's cold for so early in autumn, and Watson shivers as the hansom turns a corner.

"The chill set in, has it?" Holmes asks, without any real concern, leaning back into the corner of the cab. "A pity, that."

"Some of us need actual _heat_ to stay warm," Watson says, pulling the collar of his coat up and hunching his shoulders. "We can't all run on deductive power and narcotics alone, you know."

"That must be hard," Holmes agrees, smirking impiously as he glances over at Watson. 

The cab comes to a stop, and Watson shifts forward in his seat, already thinking about a crackling fire in the grate, afternoon tea and the warm scones that Mrs Hudson had been baking when they left. 

Holmes puts a hand on Watson's knee to stop him, opens the cab door and steps out first, swinging his coat off, folding it neatly over his arm.

"Are you mad?" Watson asks, trying to keep the grumble out of his voice, following Holmes out onto the street. "It's freezing out here."

"Yes," says Holmes, as Watson goes to pay the driver, "but then I retain my body heat through sheer deductive power and a heady mix of narcotics," and he flips his coat up and over Watson's shoulders.

Watson stares at him, but Holmes isn't paying him any attention, moving off up the front steps of the house.

"Come on," he calls, over his shoulder, "your scones will be getting cold."

The cab starts away with a clatter down the street. Watson smiles.

"You mean, if I don't hurry up you'll eat mine, too," he replies, moving after Holmes into the hall, and Holmes says, flamboyant and exclamatory, "And I'll take _all_ the jam!"

"You'll do no such thing," Watson retorts, and, with Holmes already half a staircase closer to the scones than he is, he pushes the front door shut.

 

end.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: includes gross mentions of cannibalism, apocalyptic themes, descriptions of injuries and ongoing/worsening (non-terminal) illness. Also some mental health business related to it being the end of the world. (Just as a head's up, as this is a repost, in retrospect I was a touch Not Good in the Brain when I wrote this so.... I don't know how to warn for that but I FEEL LIKE I SHOULD WARN FOR THAT SOMEHOW??) There is not a bleak ending to this fic, if you need to know that (I know I like to know in advance).
> 
> I am going to warn for horror, because this is a crossover with The Road. As ever, I am 100% willing to add warnings for anything I might have forgotten or overlooked. <3
> 
> WOW ANYWAY WHAT A HAPPY GOOD TIME FIC THIS IS.


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